Things are trying up for The Chinese Room, the studio behind Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, as they’ve been purchased by a gaggle who additionally personal Snake Pass devs Sumo Digital. It looks as if an enormous reversal of fortune, letting The Chinese Room get caught into work once more. Around this time final yr, the English studio laid off their development team and went quiet after monetary and private pressures turned an excessive amount of. They did say they could return, and right here they’re as half as Sumo Group.
Sumo Group have purchased The Chinese Room and received co-founder Dan Pinchbeck on-board as its artistic director. Sumo say that fellow co-founder Jessica Curry, who was behind their great music and likewise firm director, “will continue her career independently as a composer.”
It seems like The Chinese Room are getting again to work, increasing their staff, persevering with their present initiatives (plural), “and collaborating with other Sumo Digital studios.” Y’know, making stuff.
“Sumo will provide the support and experience I’m looking for to take The Chinese Room to the next level,” Pinchbeck stated in at the moment’s announcement. “Our aim is to build on the reputation I’m proud to have earned, to create a truly world-class studio delivering bold, imaginative new games. We’re already working on some really fantastic new concepts, alongside discussions with partners about some of the games we already have in the pipeline. The future for the studio is incredibly exciting and being part of the Sumo family is absolutely central to that.”
When the studio known as a time-out final yr, they stated they have been accomplished with strolling simulators, that they “wanted to do something more complex, more involved and bigger scale.” Of course I’d argue that they have never made walking simulators and saying they’ve misrepresents a beautiful style, however I’m opposite like that.
Pinchbeck spoke a bit of on The Chinese Room’s blog about what they could be as much as subsequent:
“Firstly, those existing concepts that didn’t get made. They are still very much on the table. Before leaving us to pursue his own games, the uber-talented Andrew Crawshaw and I worked up a new prototype of The 13th Interior, with the fantastic support of the UK Games Fund. The game still needs a little bit of work to nail down some core mechanics, but then it’s finding the right opportunity to roll out the rest of development. It’s very much still in the plan to finish it up at some point. There were also two other concepts we were playing around with – very different types of games for us – and they will remain gently percolating in the background.”
He additionally talks about the opportunity of a new-new sport that turns into potential with Sumo’s backing and which “takes a more traditional game genre – no, you don’t get to know what just yet – and lets us spin our worlds and stories on top of that.”
Sumo personal quite a few studios, together with the former CCP one in Newcastle which made EVE: Valkyrie. They’re changing into fairly outstanding, between making their very own video games, making video games for others just like the Sonic race ’em ups for Sega, and collaborating on video games together with Crackdown 3. A busy lot.
