When it comes to the long list of studios Microsoft has acquired in the last few years, the likes of Obsidian Entertainment, Ninja Theory, and all of Bethesda have certainly grabbed most of the headlines, but of course, Xbox Game Studios also has it fair share of smaller developers under its belt. One of them is Compulsion Games, the studio behind 2018’s We Happy Few, which has been completely silent about what it is working on next, and when we might hear something about.
In a recent interview with Xbox Squad, Compulsion Games’ community developer Naila Hadjas provided some brief new details on that, confirming, for starters, that the studio’s next title is going to be a narrative-driven single player third person action-adventure game. Apparently, the developer has also doubled its workforce as it works on this new project.
Speaking about the game’s development and what the studio’s primary goal is with the project, Hadjas said: “I think we give ourselves a little time to learn. It’s our first game with Microsoft and we’re learning a lot. We have doubled the workforce and we are adapting to it. The goal is to expand our zany universe, to continue to make our mark in video games as a studio that likes to make unique games, in little-used settings. For now, that’s our goal. Pursue our ‘legacy’, our heritage, while remaining true to ourselves.”
Hadjas also went on to explain that production started in earli 2019, a few months after We Happy Few came out. She said: “There was a lot of brainstorming between a few people, it started very lightly. It was gradually evolving and more and more people joined the team and now everyone is on it.”
While Hadjas didn’t go into too much detail about how the game’s development is going, she did say that it was in full production at this point. “I can’t answer too much because you never really know what’s going to happen. We are in full development,” she said. “We are in full swing , hand in hand, on the ‘hard’ stages of the project.”
By the looks of it, it might be some time before we get to hear or see something about this project, though the potential of what Compulsion Games could accomplish with the full backing and funding of Microsoft is certainly exciting. The studio’s track record in the past has been a bit spotty, with its releases generally coming with their fair share of issues, but hopefully, a larger production will lead to more polish.
