Gears of War 4, Night in the Woods Devs Accused of Sexual Assault

Gears of War 4 tools programmer Luc Shelton and Night in the Woods dev Alec Holowka were accused by two separate women of assault on Monday night. Sadly, it appears the video game industry is about to have yet another “MeToo” moment as Zoe Quinn and Adelaide Gardner came forward on Twitter to level accusations against the men.

Quinn made their declarations first, beginning with apologizing for the “rambling” nature of their post. Quinn then posted a long thread about how Holowka had tricked them into traveling to Canada after he and Quinn hit it off online.

Quinn journeyed to Winnipeg to see if their online chemistry was the same in real life and found Holowka to be abusive and dangerous. Quinn detailed how they were held in Holowka’s apartment against their will. After eventually finding the courage to end the relationship, Quinn claimed to be blacklisted for a time in the video game industry. The implication here is Holowka was responsible for that blacklisting.

Since we're on the topic of Alec Holowka and other game devs who are sexual assaulters, Luc Shelton of Splash Damage assaulted me and gaslit me and at least one other woman two years ago and plenty (former) mutuals told me to stay quiet about it but I won't ever shut up anymore.

— Adelaide ? PAXU (@ohadelaide) August 27, 2019

Shortly after Quinn’s accusations made the rounds on Twitter, Adelaide Gardner came forward. Gardner claimed Gears of War 4 dev Luc Shelton seemed nice at first but quickly became aggressive.

In her post she claimed Shelton, who is also working on porting over the Halo: Master Chief Collection to PC, would do things like not allow her to tell anyone where she was if she was at his apartment. If she did take a picture in or around where he lived, she wasn’t allowed to come close to geotagging it.

(TW: graphic sw) The last night I saw him, he handcuffed me so tight I lost feeling in my wrists for hours, and I was bleeding and raw. pic.twitter.com/zS1UjhLkUi

— Adelaide ? PAXU (@ohadelaide) August 27, 2019

While those particular accusations might seem odd, she posted a text conversation between the pair. In the conversation, he talks about being “quite aggressive and dominant”. He also lays out the “rules” of visiting where he lives.

The fallout from these accusations is still unfolding. For his part, Shelton has been active on Twitter since Adelaide Gardner came forward. So far he hasn’t addressed anything the young woman has alleged.