Between the newly announced Firefall eSports toolkit and a patch so radical its stated aim is to “create fun”, Red 5 Studios have had their work cut out for them over the last month. Yet they’ve still managed to spare enough able bodies to hold the door open and let in a stream of talent recently cut loose from 38 Studios and BioWare Austin.
“About 80 percent or 90 percent of the people we’ve added in the past few months have been from 38 and BioWare. Two months ago we had a staff of 60, and now we’re at just over 100,” Firefall’s lead class designer Dave Williams told PC Gamer.
“We’ve probably spent a pure month on recruiting, which hurt production. We ended up having to crunch harder than we ever have to get this patch done. We’ve never really crunched at Red 5, but this last month has been absolutely a true crunch.”
While Red 5 have enjoyed the benefits of a smaller, more “nimble” team, Williams says filling Firefall with enough content befitting of an MMO made the change necessary: “We needed to increase our ability to create content. We’re treading the edge of the knife to some extent. But the people we’ve added – we’re pretty careful about.”