End of Ultimate General series? Important people left Game-Labs studio
After the release of the new installment of the Ultimate General series (without much success), the key developers will soon leave Game-Labs studio, and Naval Action is expected to come under the wings of a „new” team.
The future of the Ultimate General series is uncertain. After leaving Early Access, at least two key developers of the "revolutionary" installment in the strategic series declared their departure from the Ukrainian studio Game-Labs.
Key devs are leaving Game-Labs
The first of them is Nick "DarthMod" Thomadis, the main designer of the entire series, who also became famous as the developer of mods for the Total War series. In a thread posted on Steam and the series' Discord channel, he thanked those who have supported him over the years and announced his departure from the company on December 31st.
The Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts he supervised recently received the announced patch: version 1.7, which has been available for testing since last week.
The second person leaving the Game-Labs team is Aleksandr Petrov. The studio's technical director will also depart the company on December 31, but he assured Ultimate General fans that they will be left "in good hands."
New-old Naval Action team
The news about the departure of two key developers is a terrible Christmas gift for the series' fans. Particularly following the disappointment of UG: American Revolution's release from Early Access on December 20th. A glance at the number and tone of Steam user reviews leaves no doubt about how "successful" the debut of the latest installment of the series was.
As if that wasn't enough, shortly after the release of this game, information appeared about transferring the care of Naval Action to another developer. It also may be because there were indications that the title was bought by Maksym Zasov, the founder and CEO of Game-Labs, who reportedly left the company and set up a "new" team with former employees. He also took over the newly emerging project: Sea Legends.
Players have high hopes, but also fears about this "change." For several years, the popularity and opinions about Naval Action have significantly declined, which many people associate with Stillfront's acquisition of GL. Nonetheless, not everyone is sure that the issues in this case were caused solely by the "big corporation's" pressures. Some blame Zasow himself, so they do not consider the NA remaining in his hands as good news, despite the announced "big changes."
A sinking general's ship?
Disregarding online speculations about the reasons behind NA's problems, news of the departure of two or even three key developers appears to suggest a difficult situation at Game-Labs. Some fans associate this with the Stillfront company's report from September when the company announced an "optimization and focus" of its game catalog on key brands.
This was supposed to result, among other things, in "solving the issue of smaller or worse-performing games" from the publisher's catalog. The Ultimate General series can definitely be included in this category, considering the results of the latest installment. The same applies to Naval Action in recent years, as clearly shown by the thread on Reddit about the idea of returning to the game and the reactions and comments under the announcement about the Christmas event.
In the financial summary from October, this declaration was reiterated and the acceleration of the company's "optimization" process was mentioned, starting from January 1st. In other words, the day after the announced departures of Thomadis and Peitrow. According to the fans, it's not a coincidence.
Game-Labs studio may have become a victim of these cuts, which would mean that the developers of Ultimate General have joined the long list of devs affected by the current situation in the video game industry. As guessed by, among others, the host of the YouTube channel Historical Gamer, Stillfront might have significantly reduced the team size, possibly leaving only a residual team.
Let's emphasize that these are just speculations, although not unfounded in the context of official information. Maksim Zasov promised to share a statement about Naval Action "next week" (in a statement from December 21), but so far he hasn't kept his word.
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