Most stuff that can be more ore less fact checked in these rants posted in the OP seem to be fake uninformed bullshit. The rest of the rants linked in the supposed former worker reviews are generic rants that can be said for any company, so can be made up or not because can't be fact checked.
Sounds weird because smanagement is known to be very good since all (or almost) studios release projects with reasonable development times and normally are so successful in sales and reviews.
https://i.postimg.cc/Cx1zgGGX/1.jpg
Some fact checking: Firesprite had more than
250 people when acquired in early September 2021, then in late September 2021 they acquired Fabrik (very small studio) so
became 265 people. Half a year ago they acquired a 50000 squared foot new office
capable of 400 staff and
20 times larger than their previous one. As of now they have 230 workers listed on LinkedIn (may not be very accurate, where they are listed
to have as a 200-500 people studio.
https://i.postimg.cc/N0CnncgZ/2.jpg
Some fact checking: Their
founders were these people,
Graeme Ankers (still at Sony, at the
same managing director position as of December, now also game director),
Lee Carus ('on a hiatus', left in June),
Chris Roberts (still there, continues as tech director),
Stuart Tilley (still there, continues as game director and as studio creative director) and
Stuart Lovegrove (still there, continues as company director).
So it's bullshit.
https://i.postimg.cc/0Qfzvc4g/3.jpg
Bullshit, the studio heads continue being the same people that founded it more than decade ago.
Less than a month after being acquired they
had 40 open positions at the same time.
They have now
open job positions in 8 different areas in their website for "dark, story-driven horror blockbuster with genre defining goals" and a "AAA UE5 18 player multiplayer action game with vehicular and on foot combat, storytelling elements with unique character performances".
https://i.postimg.cc/N0CnncgZ/2.jpg
We have been seeing job offers for similar projects years, talking about narrative driven stuff, horror stuff, multiplayer game with car and on foot combat. Unless they are cancelling a game and starting a very similar one this is bullshit.
He did work at Firesprite as Associate Game Director (a supporting role), not as game director.
Firesprite's game directors its cofounders Graeme Ankers and Stuart Tilley plus
Alex Barnes (Horizon CoM and The Persistence game director). They also have the director of different Motorstorm games working as creative director, hired from Lucid,
Matt Shouthern.
https://i.postimg.cc/Gh6CSvpb/left.jpg
A lead designer has different bosses above him. Like the game director (Alex, mentioned above, continues in Firesprite), the creative director (Stuart, the cofounder mentioned above, continues in Firesprite) or the Development Director (
Ian Pickles, continues there). But yes, he left to Lucid.
They released Horizon CoM, one of the top UE VR games tech wise and The Persistence for both VR and non VR and ported it even to Switch. So it's bullshit.
