Well, it’s really bad news that one of the project leadership left project near before completion, I hope this is not signal of future disaster. He is now concentrate only on mobile games. Good luck him. I don’t know how now they will be improve textures and materials in game since relic lost project leadership employee. Maybe he could not stand massive hate and complains about poor graphics and decided left studio. Previously he was art supervisor for coh series.
Proofs:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bartekn/
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I assume the Materials and Textures for AoE4 are already completely done.
The game is now in the balancing and bug fixing phase of development.
He either had the choice to work on the next Relic project or leave the studio.
I don’t think a single person leaving is a bad sign. Of course if more developers start leaving that’s a different thing.
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Hope the game will be a success 
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Yes, this is a “big loss”, and we will not consider that a person could be incompetent, or not qualified enough, or even went to the mobile industry for easy things. In any case, the developers are not leaving mobile games well.
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Why do you think making mobile games is easier?
Working with limited resources is harder.
But Mobile phones have so much more performance nowadays that that’s not really an issue anymore.
For a lot of people their phone is the most powerful device they own, even if they have a computer at home.
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I think that mobile games exist only for the developer’s profit over people, each mobile game is an implementation of various donation mechanics and player manipulations. This is a trash market.
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Yeah
and it wasn’t like his pay check would decrease if the game bombed haha
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dont worry valeran, as skadidesu already stated, the work of this perosn is basically done. They probably didnt have much more to do in the project. OR they DID actually fail in one part- but then this part will be fixed.
So dont worry if just a dev leaves when the game nears the release. Be worried if MANY do. Or if its half a year or more before release.
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I feel a strong urge to comment something on this topic that is about the Material and Texturing Lead of aoe4 who has now devoted himself to mobile games. 
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Wololo wololo you do mobile games now
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so basically AOE 4 was a project for his portfolio and Resume, no wonder the game looks like mobile game.
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You know that people change job usually because they get a better offer? (more money in their contract)
A more logical thought so would be that another company saw the good job he made with AOE4 and they asked him paying a lot.
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Some people complained that AoE4 looked like a mobile game and now the Materials and Textring Lead leave to work on mobile games…? The joke came ready on a silver plate.
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I was myself recently curious to check about Relic on Linkedin.
And WOW, during AoE4 development so many people in key position did left.
Who had so many years of Experience work at Relic.
Mitchell Lagran = Lead Designer
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlagran/
Jason Lee = Lead System Designer
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lee-b270a44/
Bonnie Jean M = Narrative Lead
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonnie-jean-mah/
Carolina Mastretta = Lead game designer.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/caromastretta/
Robert Westwood = User Experience and Interface Designer
https://www.linkedin.com/in/heyrobwestwood/
Wayne Wong Chong = Technical Art Director
https://www.linkedin.com/in/waynewongchong/
Garson Kwan = Senior Interface Artist
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garson-kwan-0179bb1/
Apparently quite many did leave.
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while these are many, checking their positions and what thy probably did reveals quite some things.
Lead Designer- left end of 2018 so probably around 2-3 years into development. While this is werid and a lead designer can always be useful until the end, I assume the basics were set in stone when they left.
System designers ususally work on the general mechanics and their interaction with in the game. Such task I would say is mostly done in earlier development - they left in 2019 so at that point I assume had nothing to do on age 4 anyways
narrative lead leaving als in 2019- maybe still viable, or not having done anything into campaigns at all at that point. Narrative may also inclde general layout and feel, how the player is narrated into the game - I think its hard to say here if relevant. Maybe they developed the general idea of the documentary style for campaigns, then left. Or they left at that time,and afterwards campaigns were narrated.
lead game designer - I assume they had more of them, or she/he did a VERY bad job. its only 5 months there. I mean the basic game design concept could be done in that time, but there would be much missing. Either way, a leave after working so shortly on the project cant have been too impactful imo
UX/interface designer in 2017 - may barely have had anything to do with age 4
technical art director left end of 2019. A lot of the technical aspect of arts should have been set then, but of course work still needed to be done
This is the FIRST change in position which maybe because of some creative differences. I can assume here that they wished for more realistic arts but were “forced” into painting artstyle, therefore left. But thats just speculation and a lot of their task was already done probably
lead ui Artist left may 2020. It can be assumed there were already a LOT of assets made then. Or also creative differences. I think though this position can be “easily” changing personnel.
so yes, within the around 5 Years of age 4 development quite some ppl left relic, some of them specifically worked on age 4.
But I was not referring to ppls leaving general. In the games industry its usual to work maximum 3 years at the same company, then change. So its positions are pretty fluctuating. Usually ppl would finish the ,most important parts of their project, then try something new elsewhere, and in most of these cases, this seems to be rather possible. Of course thats just as speculative as saying they left because of creative differences/problems.
Relic also worked on CoH3 in that time, some of these persons may have done so aswell.
And relic has 277 employees currently listed according to likedIn. 5-10 of them leavin within 5 years seems rather ususal.
But its nice you discovered all these.
However I meant it more in literal waves of ppl leaving, or really important positions where they couldnt have possibly finished.
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And you think that they left because of AoE4, and not because of the failure of DoW3. Interesting… Don’t want to know how you leaded to this conclusion.
PS: Usually in such big companies, every 2 weeks one employee leaves the company. Programmers is a job that easily change jobs… In my company every 2 weeks leaves one, and every day there are interviews for new employees. Its very usual process.
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