NEW BLOOD INTERACTIVE

The publisher-turned-studio explains the secrets behind a "miraculous" working culture

- EDWIN EVANS-THIRLWELL

New Blood Interactive CEO David Oshry has a dream: to release a game worked on by all of the studio’s core creatives. What that game might look like is anyone’s guess. While it has been celebrated as a purveyor of ’90s-styled shooters, that’s only part of the company’s story. Its output is increasingly varied, a perhaps inevitable result of the way New Blood operates: less as a traditional studio than a hectic meeting of like minds, each pursuing a very particular hobby horse with the informal assistance of the rest.

Accordingly, then, New Blood’s current lineup runs the gamut. Yes, there’s Ultrakill, a sort of Devil-May-Quake-’em-up, but also stealthy gaspunk sim Gloomwood and Fallen Aces, which looks like Condemned: Criminal Origins through a graphic-novel filter. Also incoming: an untitled car combat game, a grotty visual novel, and a CRPG made in the style of Fallout and in partnership with that game’s original composer. More than a portfolio, it’s an expansionist crusade, laying the groundwork for Oshry’s eventual dream.

“Is that ever gonna happen? I don’t know,” he admits. “You might think we’re getting better at managing our time and leveraging the stuff we’ve already got. But one of the most important things about New Blood is nobody’s tied specifically to New Blood. I let everybody that works at New Blood go off and do side projects and work with other people because it really helps keep the creative stuff going.” Take submarine horror game Iron Lung, a self-published solo project released this spring by David Szymanski, lead developer on New Blood’s reputation-making