CROTEAM

How a gaggle of football fans became the self-appointed national dev team of Croatia

- JEREMY PEEL

Croteam, if you don't know, is a portmanteau of 'Croatia team' - and naming the studio was an act of patriotism. Such flag waving might seem alien to anyone with the luxury of taking their countries for granted, but the decision was made against the backdrop of Croatia's four-year war of independence. Back then, it felt existential.

"Croatia proclaimed its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991," points out co-founder Davor Tomicic. "So it hadn't existed as a country.

It was a big thing to put it on the map, because nobody knew what Croatia was. Our sports teams and the most famous stuff from Croatia had the task of bringing it to the world, and we wanted to contribute to that." For many people, their first encounter with Croatia was Serious Sam: The First Encounter, met by a headless man with bombs for arms, sprinting over the horizon, yelling an impossible greeting from an unseen mouth: "AAAAAARGH!" The absurdity was irresistible.

"I've heard that 'Croteam' or 'Serious Sam' was the most searched Internet term for Croatia," says CCO Davor Hunski. "There was nothing more famous from Croatia in the early days." Many of Croteam's key figures have been friends since high school in the late 1980s. As teens, they split their time between programming and football meetups in Novi Zagreb, a Croatia district dominated by Soviet-era tower blocks.

"We were young, very physical guys who wanted to play and compete," Hunski says.