Five independent game studios – including the developers of the upcoming Replaced and the team behind the upcoming Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era – have joined forces in a sort-of co-op in order to support each other with development and marketing, with an aim to eventually create their own co-owned publishing label.
Sad Cat Studios (Replaced), Unfrozen (Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era), Weappy (This Is the Police), VEA Games (Nikoderiko: The Magical World), and Game Garden (Farmdale) aren’t merging; they will each remain independent studios. However, the goal of Nova Assembly is intended to be a backstop against layoffs and increasing development and publishing uncertainty in the gaming space by sharing resources in mutually beneficial ways.
Unfrozen founder Denis Federov, who will be the CEO of Nova Assembly, said, “The formation of a single holding structure bringing together five commercially successful and highly promising game studios will not only enable creators of ambitious gaming projects to share invaluable expertise accumulated over years of experience, but will also allow for more efficient and strategic use of shared resources. And all that without compromising creative independence, which ultimately remains the key driver of competitiveness in today’s challenging market.”
“In a world where we increasingly give over control to algorithms, we’re uniting with like-minded people to reinforce the human element: to exchange human ideas, offer each other human support, and make human decisions together,” added Weappy co-founder Ilya Yanovich, who will be Nova Assembly’s Creative Director.
