Owlcat Games is expanding its game development operations and entering the publishing space. The studio, known for its RPGs based on Pathfinder IP, will help other teams working on projects in the genre.
Rue Valley (right), Shadow of the Road (left)
In addition to developing its own games, Owlcat will now also provide various publishing services to partner studios and ensure that they have all the necessary funding and other resources to create and deliver projects.
“We want to work with teams that share our passion for telling compelling stories through narrative-driven games,” said Andrey Tsvetkov, Head of Publishing at Owlcat, in a statement. “These may not quite fall into the RPG genre, but they will definitely have a strong focus on story, characters and worldbuilding.”
The company has already signed contracts with two studios:
- Emotion Spark Studio – Serbia-based developer currently working on Rue Valley, a story-driven adventure RPG in the style of Disco Elysium;
- Another Angle Games – Polish team developing Shadow of the Road, a turn-based tactical role-playing game set in feudal Japan.
Owlcat also gained full control of META Publishing, a publishing label that brought Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous to market. The company, whose portfolio includes games such as Train Valley and Biped, will pursue its own strategy and focus on projects with cooperative multiplayer features.
Earlier this month, Owlcat announced that it is currently working on four games. All of them are based on the existing franchises, but not on IPs like Pathfinder, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars or World of Darkness. The studio will continue to develop classic RPGs, but will also develop a more ambitious, higher-budget game built on the Unreal Engine 5.
With the expansion into publishing, Owlcat is expected to be in good financial shape. Following the commercially successful Pathfinder series, the studio released Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader last year. The game received positive reviews and sold over 500,000 copies in its first month.
