Mortal Kombat developer NetherRealm Studios has said that it’s “actively looking into” the recent wave of reports online alleging toxic working conditions and unhealthy, sustained crunch culture within the studio.
Word of problems at NetherRealm broke when, in response to reports of severe, ongoing crunch at Epic Games, former NetherRealm developer James Longstreet posted a long series of Tweets discussing his eye-opening experiences at the company. “I didn’t sleep more than 4 hours for months”, he wrote, “Working at NetherRealm on MK9 nearly killed me”.
That prompted Ex-NetherRealm artist Beck Hallstedt to call the studio out on its “predatory and abusive behaviours”, which, in turn, saw a wave of editorial pieces from different publications – all interviewing current and former employees about their time at NetherRealm, who in turn backed up claims made by Hallstedt and Longstreet.
