• News

Indivisible production will end in wake of Lab Zero Games fallout

Another casualty of the ongoing situation with Lab Zero Games: the Indiegogo-funded RPG Indivisible.

Ozzie Mejia

October 9, 2020 1:40 PM

1

Those who have been following the situation with Skullgirls developer Lab Zero Games are aware that the situation there has gotten ugly. In an effort to distance themselves from studio founder Mike Zaimont, the vast majority of Lab Zero's employees exited while the rest were laid off. It was a nightmare situation for Skullgirls and now it's about to become a big one for the other big Lab Zero title, Indivisible. On Friday, publisher 505 Games published a statement indicating that future development on Indivisible will not happen and production on the game has stopped.

Here's 505's official statement from the Indivisible website:

In light of the recent restructuring and dissolution of Lab Zero, 505 Games would like to clarify what this means for the future of Indivisible.

At this stage, apart from content that is already in submission, there will unfortunately be no more production on the game.

We understand that longtime players have been waiting for Guest Characters as well as some Backer-created characters. Regretfully, this additional content will not be added to the game.

There is an update for Nintendo Switch that is already in submission. It will add Razmi's Challenges, New Game+ and Couch Co-Op to the Nintendo Switch. That update will bring all platforms to the same level of development and offer a complete game experience to all current and future playeres. This is expected to release later this month starting on October 13th and rolling out to other regions afterwards.

Indivisible is a game of diversity, inclusion, friendship and evolution. 505 Games worked with the talented and creative people at Lab Zero for many years to bring Indivisible to life.

We are proud of the game that was created and are happy that it has received the positive response that it deserves. We are sorry the journey has ended this way.

We wish to thank all the Indivisible players, new and old, who have supported the game. From the bottom of our hearts, we appreciate you all.

-505 Games

That is certainly an understandable stance given all that has happened within Lab Zero Games. There may be some drama that stems from 505 ceasing production before Guest Characters and Backer-created characters make it in, considering that these were originally hinted at during the Indivisible Indiegogo campaign. Those who donated larger amounts in hopes of seeing the features come to fruition may have grievances. Unfortunately, with no development studio left to work on this, this situation sadly is what it is.

The situation with Lab Zero escalated after founder Zaimont drew negative attention with a tasteless joke referencing Eric Garner and George Floyd's last words. It only went downhill from there after Twitch streamer Bunny shared disturbing DMs from Zaimont. As allegations began to pour in from the cosplayer community, Lab Zero employees began to leave the studio en masse. Most recently, Skullgirls IP holder Autumn Games cut ties with Zaimont and sided with the departed Lab Zero employees.

Indivisible is out now on PC and Switch. If you're a Switch owner, be on the lookout for that final update.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?