Current and former employees of Metroid Dread and Blades of Fire developer MercurySteam are accusing the company of fostering a toxic work environment, saying they've faced intimidation, retaliation, and crunch mandates over the last year.

These accounts come from Spanish publication 3DJuegos, which spoke with ten current and former employees about their experience at the company. According to their report (reviewed via Google Translate), management implemented what is called an "Irregular Workday Distribution" for one group of employees in January 2025, allowing the company to require one hour of overtime per day. It later began mandating 10-hour workdays for many employees in May.

This mandate was apparently never communicated in writing, but apparently delivered via department heads, some of whom are accused of retaliating against employees who pushed back or took sick leave or parental leave. Spanish union CSVI (which represents a portion of employees at MercurySteam, not the entire labor force) affirmed these allegations in a post on X on September 30. On October 1, another group of workers released a statement saying the allegations by CSVI were not true.

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Workers who did push back were apparently able to force management to admit these were not "mandatory" hours and were in fact, voluntary.

Still, many were allegedly forced into 10-hour days. Others reported being fired for taking pre-requested time off. One was an expectant father who told 3DJeugos who told his team lead he couldn't work overtime due to his wife's high-risk pregnancy. Another said she was laid off after returning from sick leave—during which her department head allegedly sent her constant texts to her personal phone while she was out of the office.

She said that when she returned, she was first denied access to key systems and not assigned any tasks, then was fired a month later for "lack of performance." After being let go, she said the company sent her legal threats for making posts about her experience on social media.

The full report is a damning, frustrating read, particularly for a company already acknowledged leaving many Metroid Dread developers out of the game's credits.

Game Developer has reached out to MercurySteam for comment and will update this story when the company responds.