Skull Island: Rise of Kong devs open up about crunch, tight budgets, and a lack of direction

Skull Island: Rise of Kong launched on all platforms (Switch included) just a few days back, and it was quick to make the rounds on the internet. Unfortunately for the devs involved, all the attention on the game was due to its rushed nature, glitchy gameplay, incomplete cut-scenes and more. All in all, it’s very clear that Skull Island: Rise of Kong didn’t have nearly enough time, money or manpower behind it for a positive outcome.

Following the public lashing the game took, The Verge has done some digging to see just how Skull Island: Rise of Kong turned into a mess. Not surprisingly, they’ve unearthed a story of devs who were completely overworked and didn’t have anywhere near the amount of time they needed to make a quality product.

Here’s some points on how Skull Island: Rise of Kong came together during development:

• made by a small team at IguanaBee in a single year who was working with a tight budget
• the publisher, Game Mill, gave the team one year to make the game
• development started June 2022
• IguanaBee says Game Mill wouldn’t give them all the necessary info on the project
• this led the team to improvising in order to keep things going and meet their dealine
• the game had 2 to 20 people working on it, and there was a lot of crunch starting in February

To learn more about how Skull Island: Rise of Kong became the game it is, check out The Verge’s full report.