Game news Cuphead: for StudioMDHR, the well-being of the teams comes before the imperatives of deadlines
Between its artistic direction which summons the cartoons of the past and its internal policy determined to put the well-being of the teams before profits, Cuphead seems to want to take the whole video game industry on the wrong foot. A case too rare for us to miss.
“It’s a video game, take your time”
Only a few days before its release, the DLC of the already legendary Cuphead continues to intrigue the video game industry, but not only because of its playful and artistic qualities. Very recently, we explained to you that Maja Moldenhauerthe executive producer of StudioMDHR had given IGN journalists a long interview explaining how much the DLC had grown compared to the initial intentions. The Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course expansion would thus be equivalent to the entire base gamein terms of the volume of animation created by studio artists.
Behind this desire to let the creators influence the evolution of the project, there is actually a way of doing things that denotes what the video game industry has accustomed us to. Director Maja Moldenhauer has spoken out about the long developmental delays, explaining that in her eyes, the well-being of StudioMDHR members comes first..
It’s hard to find people. The number one priority, especially through COVID, was to keep everyone happy. It’s a video game. Take your time. Mental health had to be at the forefront, taking the space and time we needed, especially in the last two years. We said to ourselves, “If it takes longer to release the game, it takes longer. Who cares ? – Maja Moldenhauer (Executive Producer of StudioMDHR)
“It has to be a company we are proud of”
At the antipodes of AAA productions, Cuphead is the result of a development team on a human scale, passionate and eager to deliver conscientious work of which it can be proud. At the height of the development of The Delicious Last Course DLC, StudioMDHR had only 18 developers and 6 animators specialized in manual 2D animation. According to Maja Moldenhauer, finding talented artists is difficult, and most of them have had experiences that did not allow their talent to express itself.
If we’re going to risk it all, it’s got to be a company we’re proud of. It will be a company that represents everything, an amalgamation of everything that we have always wanted. Respect for others, love and support. Things we didn’t get in our old jobs. Well, we did, but at the end of the day there was a bottom line. – Maja Moldenhauer (Executive Producer of StudioMDHR)
“It’s art for art’s sake”
Far from being a luxury, benefiting from more time was therefore a necessary condition to allow a project such as Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course to see the light of day, in all the dimension that it now has.. And too bad if it resulted in a much longer delay than expected. Players are in a good position to know how much attention to detail can change everything in a title such as this and Maja Moldenhauer says she is not worried about the DLC’s possible financial success.
Seeing all of this fall into place over the past few months, working on smaller enemies or this and that, you can’t imagine. To see it come to life, take shape, it’s magnificent. That’s exactly what we wanted… It’s art for art’s sake in the sense that you can’t explain that to people who are driven by numbers or things like that. We really can’t. – Maja Moldenhauer (Executive Producer of StudioMDHR)
Don’t miss the release of Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course on June 30 on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
