Night in the Woods Cuts Ties With Co-Creator in Wake of Sexual Assault Allegations

Night in the Woods developer Infinite Fall has cut ties with one of the game's main designers and studio's co-founders following a series of sexual assault allegations. Game developer Zoe Quinn shared several tweets recently that detailed their stories involving Infinite Fall's Alec Holowka. The allegations were graphic and detailed and were retweeted over 10,000 times, and in the wake of those accusations, Infinite Fall has elected to cut ties with Holowka and postpone or cancel some of its ongoing projects.

Through the Night in the Woods Twitter account, the studio shared its own thread of tweets prefacing the announcement by saying it had some "difficult tweets coming up." Within those tweets, Infinite Fall said it would be cutting ties with Holowka and would be cancelling the current project that's in the works. A physical release of Night in the Woods from Limited Run was also in the works, but that release has now been cancelled. Plans to release the game on iOS devices are still moving forward.

This week, allegations of past abuse have come to light regarding Alec Holowka, who was coder, composer, and co-designer on Night In The Woods. We take such allegations seriously as a team. As a result and after some agonizing consideration, we are cutting ties with Alec.

— Night In The Woods (@NightInTheWoods) August 28, 2019

We are cancelling a current project and postponing the Limited Run physical release. The iOS port is being handled by an outside company and supervised by Finji and will remain in development.

— Night In The Woods (@NightInTheWoods) August 28, 2019

Infinite Fall's Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry were behind the series of tweets, the two of them plus Holowka forming the main team behind Night in the Woods. The pair said they'd received "a lot of emails and messages" in the past few days and that the situation had been "very, very tough." The tweets also said that the developer couldn't tell anyone how to feel about the game or change how it's impacted them amid these allegations and that, moving forward, the game would be handled by the pair of developers.

Thousands of people have connected with Night In The Woods in a very personal way. We can’t tell you how to feel about any of this. Whatever you’re feeling is valid. Your experience with art is yours. What it means to you is yours, regardless of anything else.

— Night In The Woods (@NightInTheWoods) August 28, 2019

Going forward, Night In The Woods will be handled by Bethany and I. We’re not sure what that all means yet. This stuff takes time.

— Night In The Woods (@NightInTheWoods) August 28, 2019

The developer closed out its thread by apologizing for having to come forward with any news like this and thanked followers for their patience.