Golden Axed creator calls Sega 'parasites' for releasing prototype game on Steam

The developer behind cancelled reboot Golden Axe: Reborn wasn’t told that it would be released to the public and he’s not happy about it.

Sega’s announcement yesterday, that it would be releasing a game called Golden Axed for free on Steam, came as a surprise to everyone – including apparently the people that made it.

Although the game will be released as Golden Axed it started as a project called Golden Axe: Reborn, which developer Tim Dawson has revealed was originally a project by Sega Studios Australia, a prototype that was created in two weeks with a view to becoming a full project.

The same team had worked on the Castle Of Illusion remaster and the Golden Axe project apparently began in 2012 under ‘crunch conditions’, with Dawson describing it as ‘my personal nexus of nightmare hours’ and complaining of ‘inept management’ that interfered with its development.

Dawson is clearly unhappy at the game being released ‘without context, credits and with a joke title sequence’, as he recounts on Twitter his dealings with upper management and a lead designer who appears to have been hated by the rest of the team.

In the end Dawson ends up referring to Sega as ‘parasites’ for reusing the prototype in this way, without consultation, especially as they seem to be treating its release as essentially a joke.

According to Dawson the original intention for the game was supposedly a ‘darker, bloodier Golden Axe, with splatter and decapitations and two button combat’.

The prototype’s existence was previously unsuspected, as there hasn’t been a new Golden Axe title since the poorly received Beast Rider from 2008.

The story is also the latest example of developers being forced to crunch development by apparently unsympathetic management, with an ex-employee recently accusing CD Projekt of fostering ‘toxic behaviour’ during the development of Cyberpunk 2077.

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