This week, Sad Cat Studios founders Zura Zhdanovich and Igor Gritsay talk war, AI, and the seven-year development process of Replaced, the beautiful, hand-drawn cautionary tale of AI overreach which has finally been confirmed for an April 16 launch for PC and Xbox.

Elsewhere, Marie Dealessandri talks to Inno Games co-founder and COO Michael Zillmer. As we get closer to the EU Pay Transparency Directive being transposed into national law for member states, he tells us about fair pay in games, and why salary gaps can only be eliminated through transparency.

Replaced, Sad Cat's 2.5D dystopian science-fiction narrative adventure, has been a long haul. 

When studio founders Zura 'Yura' Zhdanovich and Igor Gritsay sat down in a Belarusian bar in 2018 to sketch out the title's themes, centred on AI and the human condition in the face of sentient technology, few could have predicted the type of upheaval the studio would face to bring the project to completion. 

Both Zhdanovich and Gritsay were forced to leave Belarus by the war in Ukraine, a disruption that practically stopped development "for several months" and geographically fractured the team. When creative lead Zhdanovich fled his home, he could only take pieces of his PC, principally his beloved GPU, in his backpack. Not exactly ideal conditions for creativity. 

"We'd been working in related industries," says Gritsay. "Yura was in mobile. I was in regular IT outsourcing. So we were kind of familiar with the process. 

"But nothing could have prepared us for this shitshow." 

An end to the turmoil 

Geopolitics was not, of course, the sole factor in creating what has been a gruelling process of constant reinvention and adaptation. Sad Cat Studios began development on Replaced in 2019, roughly two years before its debut at the 2021 Xbox and Bethesda showcase alongside fellow premium indie titles Somerville and Twelve Minutes (Replaced will release as a PC and Xbox-exclusive console title). Microsoft, perhaps ironically given the recent shifts in strategy and staff within the organisation, has been one of Replaced's few constants over its development period. 

"In the very, very beginning, when we were still without a publisher in 2019, we had the opportunity to have a conversation with Xbox," says Gritsay. "They never lost interest. This eventually led to a Game Pass deal. We never fell off their radar." 

While Microsoft has remained solid in its support for the game, shifts in publishers over seven years of development have left the team bruised. Sad Cat initially signed the game to Coatsink, which was then acquired by Thunderful in 2020. Further changes in Sad Cat's publisher arrangement impacted the project when Atari acquired a significant stake in Thunderful in 2024. 

"With changes in owners, you lose contact with people who keep the project together and with whom we communicate," says Gritsay. "There were rough times. But right now it's mostly stabilised and it's kind of positive, because, finally, the turmoil is finished." 

And nor has the "turmoil" been restricted to publisher relations. The game itself has changed form myriad times over the course of development, having exorcised itself of an "insane" amount of story content and shifted to become a completely hand-drawn 2.5D adventure. Every frame of Replaced's beautiful animation was created manually. When asked about the thinking behind this approach, both founders laugh. 

"I would say that we were trying to spend as much money in the least cost-effective way possible," jokes Gritsay. 

"In the beginning it was more of a creative decision than anything else," adds Zhdanovich. "We wanted to do it the classic way when the scope was much smaller. After the scope grew, we just stuck with the decision. After a certain point it was too much hassle to do it another way. We wanted it to be very detailed. We didn't want it to be flat, you know, like colours with fluid animation but not a lot of detail.  

"So I think that was the driver to make it in this painful, very painful, way."

Despite eyewatering adversity, using AI to create anything in Replaced was never an option. Wars, publisher crises, GPUs in backpacks – none of it mattered. Replaced itself is a story that questions society via the thematic optic of AI. In it, the player controls R.E.A.C.H., an artificial intelligence trapped inside a human body.

"I hate AI," says Zhdanovich. "I've never used any AI at all. I have never used ChatGPT. I have a stance against that personally.

"I think that creative work should be done by people."

Despite Zhdanovich's hardline position on AI, he does concede it may have a place in ideation and pre-production if the project is time-pressured. Whether or not the technology touches any future Sad Cat Studios projects remains to be seen.

"I would leave that up for discussion because we haven't come to a point where we actually need that," he says.

"Maybe at some point in the future, we'll say, 'We need like 100 versions of this thing,' and there's no logical way to do that without [AI]. But, like most of these things, if you have really good direction, it can be done by people.

"And I would love for it to be done by people. That's my take."

And while the future remains exactly that, Replaced is both the past and the present. Painstakingly hand-drawn, 2.5D, independent, AI-free. After seven years, the game will finally be in players' hands on April 14. Gritsay doesn't pause to consider what victory would mean at this point: Sad Cat just wants to continue, to build a secure environment for its staff.

"I'd say the ultimate success for the game is, of course, for us to be able to parallel the development, to make something new while being able to take advantage of our developed technology framework, because it'd be so wasteful to not use it again.

"Success for us is to be able to grow our team, to actually raise salaries for everybody. Because game dev was always more about passion rather than the salaries, unfortunately."

Salary in games is a touchy topic. Disparities are so common that devs often have to resort to community-sourced spreadsheets to attempt to see things more clearly – Weather Factory's Lottie Bevan put one together for the UK industry, for instance. In addition to discrepancy across similar roles, the gender pay gap is another can of worms altogether, which we touched upon last year. But for EU-based devs working at big companies, things might finally move in the right direction. There's only two months left before the Pay Transparency Directive is transposed into national law for member states – a new regulation meaning companies over 150 employees have to disclose salary ranges or starting salaries before the first job interview at the latest.

For German-based developer Inno Games, a pioneer and advocate for salary transparency that employs over 350 people, this is a significant step forward.

"[Salary] discrepancies can only be eliminated through transparency," co-founder and COO Michael Zillmer tells Knowledge. "The question of how much applicants earned in previous positions may no longer be asked. Confidentiality clauses regarding salary information in employment contracts will no longer be permitted.

"The five per cent threshold is particularly significant: if there is an unexplained pay gap of at least five per cent in a comparison group, the company must sit down with employee representatives and carry out a pay assessment. This includes a root cause analysis and an action plan. If no correction is made within six months, sanctions and further obligations apply."

This is great news for the gender pay gap but also eliminates issues where staff with similar roles get paid differently simply based on their ability to negotiate. The new directive will also apply to smaller companies from June 2031.

Becoming a fairer company

Inno Games made headlines in 2022 for being the first company to openly publish its salary bands – something it's done every year since (you can find the 2026 version here, published last month).

"Transparency and fairness are part of InnoGames' self-image," Zillmer continues. "Our employees have always been able to see exactly how our games and the company as a whole are performing at any time. Fairness also means fair pay that does not depend on gender, negotiating skills or similar factors, but solely on the skills and performance of the employees. To lay the foundation for this, we first introduced salary bands [and] in 2021 we made these transparent internally. In 2022, we followed up with the public announcement. This was the next logical step. We [also] wanted to counter the unfortunately still widespread [idea] that you can't earn good money in the gaming industry."

For companies pondering the move, Zillmer points to the benefits: creating trust and providing a sense of certainty to staff. No more wondering whether your colleague with the same responsibilities is being compensated at a higher level.

"Such questions no longer arise because individual salary negotiations and pay gaps are a thing of the past for us. We have simply become a fairer company. This, in turn, has a positive impact on our corporate culture and, ultimately, on employee satisfaction."

Zillmer says that Inno Games has received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback since going public with its salary bands. However, he mentions criticism coming from some competitors.

"For example, over time we received complaints that significantly more applicants were now coming in with salary expectations based on our salaries – without taking into account that our company is located in one of the most expensive cities in Germany and that most studios that are smaller than ours simply cannot pay the same salaries.

"I can't say whether our campaign has actually persuaded a significant number of people who were not previously interested in working in our industry to change their minds. But what I can say is that, just two months after taking this step, we were able to fill 19 vacancies, including some that had been vacant for over a year. Since then, we have also saved a lot of time and effort because applicants with different salary expectations do not even apply to us in the first place.

"The bottom line is that we have not only become a much more visible employer, but also a much more attractive one – especially for those who are typically affected by pay gaps. However, it is also true that some of these advantages only came about because we were the first mover in our region."

"Salaries are no real secret"

Obviously the new EU directive will only apply to larger studios to start with, meaning a lot of developers will continue to be secretive about their salaries, especially at the hiring stage, getting into the dreaded "What are you salary expectations?" feedback loop.

"Those who wait until the end of the application process to discuss salary often hope that the applicant will be more willing to accept a salary below their expectations so close to the finish line," Zillmer notes. While this might initially save the company money, he notes that in the long run these savings are offset by the costs of more frequent dropouts in the application process.

"Getting an applicant to the final round requires a number of resources. If the applicant rejects the job offer because the salary is too low, those resources have been wasted. Not to mention the frustration on the part of the applicant, who will think very carefully about whether to apply to the same company again when the next job change comes around, and the frustration of the HR staff involved."

Zillmer applauds what the new EU directive represents but isn't necessarily hoping for more regulation in the future. Instead, he hopes that the change will come from within and that game companies realise that salary is actually an open topic among staff, so they may as well embrace it.

"Salaries are no real secret. Sufficiently motivated applicants can find out what they can earn and where by talking to current or former employees, looking at platforms such as Glassdoor, or visiting relevant social media channels. My hope is that companies – including those not covered by the new laws – will realise this and save their applicants the trouble by making their salaries transparent on their own initiative."

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Highlights from industry chat channels

Edge 422, featuring Remedy's mind-scrambling Control Resonant, is available now. If you haven't picked it up yet, these morsels may get you in the mood. 

"We haven't done a melee game before at Remedy. We knew we really needed to invest in systems and gamefeel, to make sure it's intrinsically fun to hack enemies into pieces and you're getting these pops of dopamine from that combat loop." Art director Elmeri Raitanen on one of many departures Remedy is making with Control Resonant.

"Something that's quite unusual in games is to have a story that’s driven by romantic intent, not a revenge motivation. But we start with these kinds of archetypes and figuring out what their relationships are with one another in the same way as you would do with any sort of character-driven narrative." Mafia: The Old Country director Alex Cox on virtual romance in modern games. 

"We weren't trying to make a simulator. We were trying to make a piece of theatre." Lead designer Mads Prahm recalls the inspiration behind IO's Freedom Fighters.

"I feel like there's so much in the world of difficult play that has not been explored. It’s a toolset that games have that other media doesn't." Surely Bennett Foddy's games aren't going to get even more challenging?

"Neither of us have ever done any kind of training for what we do. We have limped along and picked things up and slowly built up our knowledge base and skills." Bad Viking co-founder John Donkin tells us about the journey towards Strange Antiquities.

"Eventually a literal demon shows up to tell you what a great job you’re doing. As it turns out, what you really hunger for is a pat on the back from your boss." Steven Poole achieves his goal playing Bottomless Pit Supervisor. 

Edge 422 is available from UK newsagents now, and online here. For a limited time, you can subscribe and get your first three issues for just £5.

We'll be back next week. In the meantime, don't forget to share your feedback with us by email ([email protected]), and follow us via Bluesky and LinkedIn.

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