Two directors who worked on MultiVersus just walked away from AAA game development, and they’re not shy about why. Justin Fischer and Brock Feldman, who served as production director and technical director respectively on Warner Bros.’ now-defunct platform fighter, announced they’ve formed Airlock Games, a completely self-funded indie studio. Their first project is a 16-bit sci-fi horror management sim called What the Stars Forgot, and it represents everything they couldn’t do while working on massive triple-A titles.
The Freedom Statement
Fischer and Feldman didn’t mince words when explaining their departure from AAA development. They stated they’ve spent years working on high-profile AAA titles, but they missed the wonderful, reckless creativity of more focused games. It’s a space where they can focus on providing new experiences that interest them both as players and developers. They’re so excited to have the freedom to take creative risks, push boundaries, and tell stories that just aren’t feasible for AAA productions.
That word keeps coming up in their statements. Freedom. Freedom to take risks. Freedom to push boundaries. Freedom to tell stories that AAA publishers won’t greenlight. After watching MultiVersus get shut down just a year after its relaunch despite hitting over 114,000 concurrent players on Steam, you can understand why these developers want control over their own creative destinies. Warner Bros. closed the game in May 2025, marking the second time MultiVersus had been shut down after initially closing for nearly a year following its 2022 launch.
The AAA Complexity Problem
Airlock Games’ business model is described as a deliberate response to the increasing complexity of developing AAA titles. The studio plans to leverage Fischer and Feldman’s combined 45-plus years of experience to make smaller games as efficiently as possible. They want to complete titles in under a year, focusing on truly unique experiences rather than chasing trends or appeasing corporate committees. This shift aims to recapture the creative risk-taking and innovation of gaming’s golden age.
The complexity they’re referring to isn’t just technical. Modern AAA development involves massive teams, years-long production cycles, hundreds of millions of dollars in budgets, and layers of corporate oversight. Creative decisions get filtered through marketing departments, focus groups, and executive producers worried about quarterly earnings. By the time a game ships, the original creative vision has often been compromised to death by a thousand cuts.
What the Stars Forgot
Airlock Games’ debut title couldn’t be further from MultiVersus if they tried. What the Stars Forgot is a sim management horror game inspired by Star Trek and The Terror, featuring 16-bit graphics that juxtapose timeless retro aesthetics with disturbing horror and dark comedy themes. The game puts players in command of a starship crew dealing with increasingly bizarre and supernatural events as they traverse four sectors of space.
The core gameplay loop involves managing crew performance, balancing assignments, and monitoring morale. Some crew members have hidden talents that make them perfect for specific roles. Others are complete novices who need experience to unlock their potential. The wrong person on the wrong assignment can be catastrophic, especially when stress starts driving crew members to drink too much, stop performing duties, or start dangerous eldritch-worshipping cults.
Crew Psychology and Horror
Players need to pay attention to crew moods through subtle clues in their words and deeds. Are they confident in their assignments? Stressed out? Planning a mutiny? Suffering a complete break with reality? Left unchecked, crew stress manifests in increasingly disturbing ways. The game blends management sim mechanics with psychological horror as the journey progresses through four chapters, each corresponding to a sector where events become more bizarre, disturbing, and supernatural.
The target playtime is approximately four hours per run, with a deep learning curve and high replayability. This compact runtime reflects Airlock’s philosophy about respecting player time while still offering depth. Not every game needs to be a 100-hour open-world epic or an endless live service grind. Sometimes a focused four-hour experience can deliver more memorable moments than games that overstay their welcome.
The Kickstarter Campaign
What the Stars Forgot is currently running a Kickstarter campaign with a 25,000 dollar funding goal. As of late October 2025, the campaign has raised nearly 8,000 dollars and will continue until November 27. The relatively modest funding target reflects the game’s scope and the studio’s lean operation. Fischer and Feldman aren’t trying to raise millions for a sprawling epic. They’re funding a focused experience that can be completed efficiently without corporate backing.
The game is planned to launch in Steam Early Access in December 2025, just weeks after the Kickstarter concludes. This aggressive timeline is only possible because the developers are working on a manageable scope with clear creative vision. They’re not promising features they can’t deliver or trying to be everything to everyone. It’s a refreshing approach in an era where Kickstarter campaigns routinely overpromise and underdeliver.
MultiVersus’ Troubled History
Understanding why Fischer and Feldman left AAA development requires looking at what happened to MultiVersus. The game launched in July 2022 as a free-to-play platform fighter featuring Warner Bros. characters like Batman, Superman, Bugs Bunny, and Arya Stark from Game of Thrones. It was a hit initially, reaching 153,433 concurrent players on Steam at its peak. Then the player base dwindled rapidly, and Warner Bros. shut it down for almost a year.
MultiVersus relaunched at the end of May 2024 with significant improvements and hit over 114,000 concurrent players. But the momentum couldn’t be sustained. Warner Bros. criticized the title for underperforming, and in January 2025, Player First Games announced Season 5 would be the game’s last. The servers officially closed on May 30, 2025, bringing an end to the crossover brawler after just one year of its second life.
The Aftermath
The shutdown sparked controversy over refund policies. Players who purchased the 99.99 dollar Premium Founder’s Pack during the game’s 2022 run complained that the pack included character unlock tokens, but the game ended before enough characters were released to spend them all. Warner Bros. maintained there would be no refunds, stating that their announcement didn’t change any current refund policies or terms offered by storefronts. The game remained playable offline with all earned and purchased content accessible in local and training modes, but that was cold comfort for players who felt scammed.
Some developers even received threats following the shutdown announcement, with MultiVersus game director calling out threats to harm on social media while expressing deep mourning for the game. The situation perfectly illustrates the pressures and toxicity that come with AAA live service game development, especially when corporate decisions to pull the plug leave developers holding the bag.
Industry Veterans Going Indie
Fischer and Feldman aren’t alone in their exodus from AAA development. The pair previously worked on Disney Infinity and Medal of Honor before MultiVersus, giving them extensive experience across multiple high-profile franchises. Their decision to go indie mirrors a broader trend in the games industry where veteran developers are striking out on their own after years of layoffs, studio closures, and creative compromises.
The turbulent state of the video game industry makes studios like Airlock Games feel like beacons of hope. Major publishers have conducted massive layoffs throughout 2024 and 2025, canceling projects and shutting down studios despite record revenue. Developers with decades of experience are being let go so companies can optimize quarterly earnings. In this environment, self-funding a small indie studio focused on creative vision rather than shareholder returns feels almost radical.
Lower Prices and Shorter Games
Airlock Games is committed to creating innovative and creative products that understand the time restrictions of modern gamers by providing shorter playtimes at lower price points. This philosophy directly challenges the AAA industry’s obsession with bigger, longer, more expensive games. Not everyone wants to invest 70 dollars and 100 hours into every new release. Sometimes players just want a focused experience they can complete in an evening or a weekend without feeling like they’re missing out on endless post-launch content.
The four-hour runtime for What the Stars Forgot is intentional. The game respects that players have jobs, families, and other responsibilities. It aims to deliver a complete, satisfying experience without padding the runtime with busywork or grinding. The lower price point makes it accessible to more players while generating enough revenue to sustain a small indie studio. It’s a sustainable model that prioritizes long-term creative fulfillment over short-term profit maximization.
FAQs
Who are Justin Fischer and Brock Feldman?
Justin Fischer was the production director and Brock Feldman was the technical director on MultiVersus. They have combined 45-plus years of experience in game development, having previously worked on Disney Infinity, Medal of Honor, and other AAA titles before forming Airlock Games.
Why did MultiVersus shut down?
MultiVersus officially closed on May 30, 2025, after Warner Bros. criticized the game for underperforming. Despite hitting over 114,000 concurrent players when it relaunched in May 2024, the player base dwindled, leading to the decision to end support after Season 5.
What is Airlock Games?
Airlock Games is a self-funded indie studio founded by Justin Fischer and Brock Feldman in October 2025. The studio focuses on making smaller games efficiently in response to the increasing complexity of AAA development.
What is What the Stars Forgot?
What the Stars Forgot is a sim management horror game inspired by Star Trek and The Terror. It features 16-bit graphics and tasks players with managing a starship crew dealing with increasingly bizarre and supernatural events. The game targets approximately four hours per playthrough.
When does What the Stars Forgot release?
The game is planned to launch in Steam Early Access in December 2025. A Kickstarter campaign with a 25,000 dollar funding goal is currently running until November 27, 2025.
Can I still play MultiVersus?
MultiVersus servers shut down on May 30, 2025. Players who downloaded the game before that date can still access it in offline mode with local gameplay and training mode, retaining all earned and purchased content.
Why are AAA developers going indie?
Many AAA developers are forming indie studios to escape the complexity, corporate oversight, and creative compromises of large-scale game development. The trend has accelerated following years of industry layoffs, studio closures, and canceled projects.
What does Airlock Games mean by freedom?
The founders describe freedom as the ability to take creative risks, push boundaries, and tell stories that aren’t feasible in AAA productions due to corporate constraints, focus group testing, and profit-driven decision making.
Conclusion
Justin Fischer and Brock Feldman’s departure from AAA game development tells a story that’s becoming increasingly common in the industry. Talented veterans with decades of experience are walking away from high-profile projects and corporate paychecks to chase creative freedom. The decision to form Airlock Games and create What the Stars Forgot represents more than just career changes. It’s a statement about what’s broken in modern AAA development and what needs to change. The increasing complexity, bloated budgets, endless production cycles, and corporate oversight have sucked the joy out of making games for many developers. When a project like MultiVersus can attract over 100,000 concurrent players at relaunch and still get shut down a year later because it underperformed financially, something is fundamentally wrong with the system. Fischer and Feldman are betting that smaller, more focused games made by passionate developers can succeed where massive corporate productions stumble. Whether What the Stars Forgot becomes a hit or not, the fact that these veterans chose creative freedom over AAA stability speaks volumes about the state of the industry. More developers will follow their lead. The question is whether publishers will notice the exodus and make meaningful changes, or if they’ll keep chasing unsustainable growth until there’s nobody left who remembers why they got into game development in the first place.