MercurySteam employees speak out - 10-hour workdays, unclear policies, and a workplace falling apart

While some game studios are dealing with layoffs and scrapped projects, things aren’t much better at MercurySteam, the team behind Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and Metroid Dread. A recent 3DJuegos article reveals serious claims from current and former employees about troubling working conditions at the Spanish developer.

MercurySteam's culture of crunch

According to the 3DJuegos report, MercurySteam has introduced a series of controversial HR policies and poor working conditions that have hurt team morale. In January 2025, the company introduced a new work schedule called DIJ (Distribucion Irregular de la Jornada), which means longer hours without clear extra pay. This system allows for one extra hour of work per day — meaning nine-hour workdays and a total of up to 45 hours per week. According to employees, the main reason given was “production needs.”

In addition to the DIJ system, some departments were told to put in even more hours, resulting in ten-hour workdays for a lot of people. This policy was never made official or written down anywhere. Instead, managers were just told to pass the message along verbally. The result was pure chaos: barely any information, zero transparency, and even team leaders didn’t have clear answers. But not everyone was treated equally, some departments never worked the extra hours at all.

With everyone confused, the affected employees were called into a meeting. A few who had already looked into labor laws quickly spotted several contradictions in HR’s explanations. One employee recalls:

Workers also point out that the company initially never told them that these new overtime hours were voluntary. The company said they had to work extra hours, “no questions asked.” At one point HR finally admitted that those hours were not actually mandatory.

10 hours a day – a new normal

After Blades of Fire launched and didn’t sell well as expected, many believe that’s why working conditions tightened even further. Suddenly, ten-hours workdays were framed as normal. Many employees didn’t even realize other departments were doing the same until May, when things finally blew up and became company wide. The article features testimonies from the current and former employees, including some union members, all painting a picture of a workplace that’s gone downhill fast.

Source: Blades of Fire; Developer: MercurySteam

In August the laid offs have started. MercurySteam justified layoffs by claiming there wasn’t enough work and that poor Blades of Fire sales caused financial strain. However, some departments continued crunching while others kept hiring. Employees describe being caught off guard, rushed to pack their things, and told not to say goodbye, highlighting the lack of communication and the irony of being forced to work extra hours before being let go.

In September, just after the layoffs, MercurySteam started cracking down on internal communications. All non-work-related chats were deleted, and employees were warned about “random audits,” which made everyone nervous and quiet. They also added partitions and turnstiles in the office, making it harder for staff to interact, and overall the office vibe became tense.

Some teams at MercurySteam are still putting in extra DIJ hours, sometimes for weeks straight with only a “break” week here and there, and it’s expected to continue for the duration of the current project. One employee jokes that an eight-hour day is now called a “rest week,” highlighting the ongoing crunch.

• MercurySteam Entertainment
• scandals and controversies
• crunch