Half-Life: Alyxdeveloper Valve doesn’t typically crunch to make its games, say two people who worked on the game. Several other game developers have been criticized for their crunch development and one former Naughty Dog animator said that its crunch makes it"near impossible" to hire veteran animators.
Speaking to GamesBeat,Half-Life: Alyxanimator James Benson spoke about crunch culture at Valve and said that “it seems to me that Valve basically doesn’t think it’s good or useful in terms of good game development practice to slowly erode your home life by working you to death.” Designer Greg Coomer thinks that “explicitly, we’ve purposefully made it so that crunch mode is not the norm, and hopefully not a thing that goes on at Valve.” When there is crunch it’s rare, done in the last few weeks of development and is done by a smaller group who will work extended hours.
RELATED:Half-Life: Alyx Clip Shows VR Headcrab Encounter
Many will say that theHalf-Life: Alyxreviews, which have mostly been incredibly positive, comes because of the company’s approach to crunch. The game shows what can happen when developers are not forced to work long, tiring hours where they are unable to see their families. Developers want to get their games released, but it could be much better for sales and reviews if crunch isn’t just optional, but is also very rare.
In comparison,Anthem, BioWare’s sci-fi RPG, had very poor reviews at launch. BioWare isnow rebootingAnthem, say reports. That game was reportedly developed under crunch conditions, prompting some developers to have to take time off for several weeks or months.
AnthemandHalf-Life: Alyxare only two games and there aregood games that have been developed with crunchand bad ones that have been developed without it. However, it seems that games are more likely to be high quality if the developers can make them in a healthy way.
It seems unlikely that things will change with game development in 2020. CD Projekt RED has confirmedCyberpunk 2077will have crunch, but it will not be as bad as the crunch development onThe Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. While it is positive that things have gotten better at that developer, there are many others where crunch is normal but it’s unclear what will make them all choose to change.
