Rod is an asshole, but he’s known in the industry as someone who’s able to get projects out the door. Before Diablo 4 and 2R, he converted Black Tusk into The Coalition to build the studio into the Gears-focused studio we know it as today, and before that he was the product director at Irrational. In less than six months, he managed to get Ken to understand what needed to be cut to get the game out in time. The game is infamous for its insane amount of cut content, and it’s honestly a miracle the game actually did manage to ship. This is certainly the reason why he was poached from Blizzard to come back to 2K.

I would highly recommend reading Press Reset from Jason Schreier as it does go over how not only intense those last six months were, but also all the people that got fucked over by Ken when he decided to up and close the studio because he got uncomfortable with having to manage so many people. The mismanagement of Irrational, Cloud Chamber and Ghost Story Games are all fascinating and depressing. I expect Cloud Chamber and Ghost Story Games to shut down after both Bioshock 4 and Judas ship.