Owlcat Games, an independent studio with offices in Russia and Cyprus, is making a name for itself among fans of roleplaying games.
The crowdfunded cRPG Pathfinder: Kingmaker was quite successful when it released on PC a couple of years ago and it's now getting a proper console port (just as we first reported back in November 2018), too, alongside an official turn-based mode (a community mod is already available) coming to PC as well. The game, just like its upcoming sequel Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, prominently featured writing by veteran game designer and writer Chris Avellone, who held the position of narrative designer on the project.
In light of the recent allegations of harassment and misconduct levied against Chris Avellone by several women, multiple studios have decided to cut ties with the writer, including Paradox Interactive, Techland, and Gato Salvaje. Since then, ALL-iN! Games (the publisher of Alaloth: Champions of the Four Kingdoms, another cRPG he had worked on) also shared a statement on Twitter.
All in! Games statement regarding our cooperation with Chris Avellone: pic.twitter.com/eFIKMzD7GP
— ALL iN! GAMES (@AllinGamesGroup) June 23, 2020
We decided to reach out to Owlcat to inquire about the studio's position on this delicate matter since, as far as we publicly know, they're the last studio Avellone was working with. You can find their entire response below.
As many of our friends and colleagues from the industry, we are shocked by the allegations about Chris Avellone. Chris has contributed a lot to the RPG genre in his career, including our first game Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and his reputation never allowed us to expect any of this ever to happen. We at Owlcat do not condone sexual misconduct in any form. At the same time, we don’t uphold taking rushed actions based on allegations, and we will continue monitoring the situation closely to make an informed decision.
In fairness, Avellone himself didn't really fight the allegations, apologizing to his accusers via Twitter and admitting he should have been better.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, the next game in development at Owlcat, is scheduled to hit PC (Steam and GOG) by June 2021. You can already pre-order via the game's official website.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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