Lauren Koopowitz, the voice actor behind mapmaker Shakra and more than 20 other characters in Hollow Knight: Silksong, says Team Cherry is a bunch of "healthy workaholics."
Talking to Dan Allen Gaming, Koopowitz was asked if Team Cherry is the type of studio to work 12-hour days to meet tight deadlines. Koopowitz said "it depends on the cycle of where the game is at and what deadlines are around."
More generally, she had positive things to say about Team Cherry's approach to work-life balance:
"They are very dedicated, but also very mindful. I feel like they'd be the best bosses ever in that they're very, very mindful that people have lives and need to have a good quality of life and things like that," said Koopowitz.
"They definitely have a good balance. I'd be lying if I said that they're not very hard workers. Like, they were working a lot. But I'm also very thankful that, it wasn't like a big pressure cooker. They weren't so intense about it and really trying to rush their team to get everything done. They're very kind and chill people in that way. Which I feel like is a good balance. Healthy workaholics," she added, laughing.
At another point in the interview, Koopowitz called the folks at Team Cherry "very lovely guys" who were always receptive to her input as a VO.
"I'd chit chat and pitch things and be like 'oh do you think that maybe she's feeling like this' and maybe give it a go like that," she said.
It's always good when the hot new game of the moment wasn't made by terrible people, and it definitely sounds like Team Cherry fosters a pretty healthy and balanced work environment, at least according to Koopowitz.
As for the game's brutal difficulty? Silksong "was much harder when I did it," says Team Cherry tester who also voiced Trobbio: "It was almost entirely nerfs to bosses that I got put in"
