When one door closes, they say, another one opens – and of that, Asobo Studio appears to be proof. The French studio came into being when the doors of another closed in 2002, as Nightmare Creatures developer Kalisto Entertainment declared itself bankrupt. Asobo was the phoenix from the ashes, founded by a dozen ex-Kalisto staff because they wanted to complete the game they’d been working on, an arena-based party game called Super Farm. “When Kalisto collapsed, we were so close to finishing it,” co-founder and CCO David Dedeine recalls. “It was so sad to not see this product go to market, so we were like, ‘We need to finish this thing’.” And they did. From that first closed door, it wasn’t just one that opened, but another and another.
Working in Asobo’s favour when it started was that it had a proprietary engine and a nearcomplete game on its books. Pooling their limited resources, the staff were able to buy the Super Farm IP and the tech they’d developed. “The value of it was very small,” Dedeine says of the latter, “because only we could use it.” What they didn’t have was any expertise in bringing a game to market, or enough cash left over to rent office space. “We were a group of friends that wanted to continue their adventures together,” says Martial Bossard, another co-founder and now executive producer of Flight Simulator. They set up in co-founder (now CEO) Sebastien Wloch’s living room. “His wife was sitting on the couch, watching us, like, ‘What is going on?’” says Bossard, describing how they pushed the furniture aside to make room for PCs. This “temporary” arrangement lasted almost two years.
This story is from the May 2023 edition of Edge UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the May 2023 edition of Edge UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
Anyone familiar with the concept of kitbashing is already halfway to understanding what Tomas Sala’s open-world builder is all about.
Children Of The Sun
René Rother’s acrid revenge thriller – an action game with its limbs broken and forcibly rearranged into the shape of a spatial puzzler – is at once a bonafide original and an unlikely throwback. Cast your eyes right and you wouldn’t blink if we told you this was a forgotten Grasshopper Manufacture game from the early PS3 era (we won’t be at all surprised if this finds a spot on Suda51’s end-of-year list).
Post Script
What does Rise Of The Ronin say for PS5 exclusivity?
Rise Of The Ronin
Falling in battle simply switches control to the next person up, and then quick revive fixes everything
Post Script
The pawn and the pandemic
Dragon's Dogma 2
The road from Vernworth to Bakbattahl is scenic but arduous. Ignore the dawdling mobs of goblins, and duck beneath the chanting harpies that circle on the currents overhead, and even moving at a hurried clip it is impossible for a party of four to complete the journey by nightfall.
BLUE MANCHU
How enforced early retirement eventually led Jonathan Chey back to System Shock
THE MAKING 0F.... AMERICAN ARCADIA
How a contrast of perspectives added extra layers to a side-scrolling platform game
COMING IN TO LAND
The creator of Spelunky, plus a super-group of indie developers, have spent the best part of a decade making 50 games. Has the journey been worth it?
VOID SOLS
This abstract indie Soulslike has some bright ideas