THQ Nordic parent company have been expanding rapidly and aggressively for a while now, and that expansion seems to be showing no signs of slowing down. The company recently announced that it has acquired a slate of new studios- 13 in total, of which 11 are game development studios, one is a PR firm, and one is a QA-focused software outsourcing company.

Polish developer Flying Wild Hog – who are currently working on Shadow Warrior 3 and have also partnered with Focus Home Interactive for an upcoming project – is one of the studios that have been acquired. Phoenix Point developer Snapshot Games, Operencia: The Stolen Sun developer Zen Studios, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated developer Purple Lamp Studios, and Quantum League developer Nimble Giant Entertainment have also joined the fold.

The other studios that Embracer have acquired are 34BigThings, Coffee Stain North, A Thinking Ape Entertainment, Mad Head Games, IUGO Mobile Entertainment, and Silent Games. Meanwhile, Embracer have also brought PR firm Sandbox Strategies and quality assurance-focused software outsourcing company Quantic Lab into the fold.

Where earlier this year Embracer Group collectively had 118 games in development, 69 of which were unannounced at the time, that number has now gone up to a whopping 135 games.

"During a company-wide brainstorming event a lingering idea came up. What would real-time first-person XCOM be like?"

The central premise of Quantum League is a fascinating one, and it’s fair to say that it’s quite unlike anything we’ve seen before in competitive shooters before. How did it come about?

During a company-wide brainstorming event a lingering idea came up. What would real-time first-person XCOM be like? The mechanic was not totally clear, but the idea of being a one-man-squad going back in time again and again to fight another player was there. We decided to assign a very small team to make a prototype. After two weeks we presented a prototype with the base mechanics to the whole company. A two vs two arena, king of the hill, three clone time rewind mechanic, barrels and all. The team played a match. It started slow, people trying to figure out what was going on. By the second loop people were on the edge of their seats. On the final last second point people jumped and cheered. We knew we had something.

How challenging was it to take this crazy idea and ensure that it then works as an actual game?

It has been a very interesting challenge, to say the least! The core problem when embarking on such a journey is that you have no fixed frame of reference, and kind of have to come up with unique solutions to “solved” problems of FPS design, like death mechanics, game modes, HUD design… We felt it was important to really consider each design problem as it presented itself to us in a fresh way, in order to let us find the best possible solution and avoid falling into a “default” decision which would have brought more compromise down the road.

Though the beginning of the decade saw the competitive shooter market beginning to settle into a comfortable rhythm, the last few years have seen a burst of creativity, and several new ideas have exploded onto the scene. With regular competitive shooters, battle royales, hero shooters, and more on the market, where do you see Quantum League fitting in and carving out its own playerbase?

Our analysis is that most FPS players are getting progressively less “game-locked”, and are open to keep more shooters in their active library at the same time, which is great news for everyone as this fosters innovation.

In a way, Quantum League is the antithesis of battle royales: instead of player agency being diluted in a huge player count and gigantic map, here it’s all about you, and the solutions you are able to come up with to overcome your opponent. Our closed beta community has sometimes likened the feeling of playing QL to a game of fast chess.

"Due to the game’s competitive nature, we’re being very careful with gating gameplay content per-level, so all our unlocks are currently only cosmetic. The game will not have a level cap."

Have you considered modes for Quantum League that go beyond the 2v2 count, or is the game’s very premise something that just wouldn’t work with higher player counts?

We have several ideas beyond the “capture the point” and “deathmatch”, both in 1v1 and 2v2. However, we’re saving most of them for the next iterations of the game. We believe the mechanics can offer a variety of different challenges for the players, but we need to be very careful when designing it as possibilities are endless and we need to consider each scenario. As for going beyond 2v2 into 3v3 and more, there are other things we need to figure out first, like performance and level design.

Can you talk about how much the playable characters differ from each other? Are the differences largely cosmetic, or can players expect to see gameplay advantages and disadvantages to each as well?

Currently the characters are only cosmetic. We’re evaluating a few ideas, but we can’t confirm any of that yet.

Can you talk about progression, and what sort of improvements or unlocks players will be working toward as they level up? Have you decided on a level cap for the game?

Due to the game’s competitive nature, we’re being very careful with gating gameplay content per-level, so all our unlocks are currently only cosmetic. The game will not have a level cap.

What can you tell us about Quantum League’s map design? I imagine the process of conceptualizing and then creating them would have been an interesting challenge given the game’s core gameplay mechanic and its smaller player counts.

Designing a Quantum League level requires careful consideration of the intended gameplay variables first, like loop length and player count, which define its scale and pace. Then it’s a matter of executing the level’s concept using prototyping tools as fast as possible, and test it with an active time loop. More often than not, ideas that seemed cool on paper end up being rejected at this stage! However, once maps get past this initial stage, the rest of the process is more straightforward: many playtest / polish cycles to get it to feel balanced and fun, and then fine-tuning cover and special object positions until the map is fair and fun.

What can players expect from Quantum League’s weapons as far as quantity and variety are concerned?

Our core game rule is that you pick a primary weapon for each clone that spawns, so we need to make sure that all weapons are balanced, but not in an absolute way: during natural play, we want players to recognize the gameplay situation they are in and go “this is the perfect weapon for this situation / tactic I want to use”.

Our ideal for adding a weapon is that it allows a tactic that wasn’t possible before. Due to this, we are keeping the number of weapons intentionally low up to our initial release, and plan on growing their number in future updates. 

"After we launch, we’ll be sharing a roadmap with our players which details all features and major updates the game will receive."

What are your plans for Quantum League’s post-launch support, by way of updates or new content?

After we launch, we’ll be sharing a roadmap with our players which details all features and major updates the game will receive. What I can share right now is that we plan to grow the game in all possible dimensions: new maps, modes, weapons but also completely new gameplay mechanics once players have had a moment to get used to the game.

Will the game feature Xbox One X and PS4 Pro-specific enhancements? Is 4K/60 FPS on the cards?

The game has been officially confirmed for PC (Steam) and Nintendo Switch. We want to bring the game to as many platforms as possible, but we’ll share those details later on.

What are the docked and undocked resolution and frame rate of the Switch version?

The Switch version is still in active development and improving every day, so we still can’t give a definite answer on this particular subject.

With next gen approaching, have you given any thought to releasing Quantum League for the PS5 and Xbox Series X as well?

Nothing is off the table!

"All developers building multi-platform titles are bound by the lowest-spec target hardware, so the only advantage I can imagine there would be more stable framerates on higher-end resolutions for the Xbox Series X."

The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s Read Bandwidth. This is faster than anything that is available out there. How can developers can take advantage of this and what will it result to?

Well, it definitely should help loading times, for a start, but speaking as a game and level designer what this will probably bring over time is a kind of paradigm shift in how we structure our game worlds, and how detailed they can be. It remains to see what actual benefits we can get from that right now, as engine technology also needs to evolve to match the hardware advances, and developer mentalities need to catch up as well. Sometimes more isn’t really better (remember the Cell?).

The PS5 features up to 10.3 TFLOPs whereas the Xbox Series X has 12 TFLOPs. There is a difference there, but do you think such a difference matters in the long run?

I think it will mostly matter to Xbox-exclusive titles, which will be able to be programmed to get every drop of extra juice from the machine. It may also buy the new console a longer generation cycle. However, all developers building multi-platform titles are bound by the lowest-spec target hardware, so the only advantage I can imagine there would be more stable framerates on higher-end resolutions for the Xbox Series X.

While the PS5 has drawn some criticism from some people over its perceived lack of power as compared to the Xbox Series X, one aspect of the console that has universally excited developers across the industry is its SSD. The console’s solid state drive promises to be the best on the market, and theoretically, should lead to actual, tangible improvements in game design, on top of other relatively more minor but still welcome upgrades.

Another developer who’s quite excited about the PS5’s SSD is Balthazar Auger of Nimble Giant Entertainment, lead designer on the unique upcoming competitive shooter, Quantum League. Speaking with GamingBolt, Auger talked about how the SSD would, of course, help reduce load times, before saying that more importantly, it will probably trigger “a paradigm shift” in how developers approach designing their game’s worlds.

He said: “Well, it definitely should help loading times, for a start, but speaking as a game and level designer what this will probably bring over time is a kind of paradigm shift in how we structure our game worlds, and how detailed they can be.”

According to Auger, however, it remains to be seen if and when those theoretical advantages will actually manifest, which is something that will be determined by various other factors, such as development engines that can evolve to the point where they can actually handle that kind of stuff.

“It remains to see what actual benefits we can get from that right now, as engine technology also needs to evolve to match the hardware advances, and developer mentalities need to catch up as well,” Auger said. “Sometimes more isn’t really better (remember the Cell?).”

Meanwhile, when asked about possible ports of Quantum League on the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, Auger responded, “Nothing is off the table!”

In the same interview, Auger also spoke to us about the difference between the PS5 and Xbox Series X’s respective GPU clock speeds, and what sort of an impact he sees that having. Read more on that through here.

Quantum League is due out for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC later this year. Our full interview with Auger will be going live soon, so stay tuned for that.

Comparisons between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X and the tech powering each console are going to dominate conversations for some time to come. It’s clear that each console has its own unique strengths, but the one area where Microsoft’s next-gen system has the edge is raw power- specifically, with its GPU, which boasts a clock speed of 12 TFLOPS as opposed to the PS5’s variable clock rate of 10.28 TFLOPS.

There have been plenty of analyses about what this difference will amount to, but what do developers in the industry think about it? Recently, we conducted an interview with Nimble Giant Entertainment, developers of the upcoming competitive shooter Quantum League, and asked them about their opinion on the same, and if they think the difference between the two consoles will matter in the long run.

Balthazar Auger, lead game designer on Quantum League, told us that while it’s something that will prove to be beneficial to developers working on Xbox exclusives, for multiplatform studios, it won’t make too much of a difference, because, they’ll be “bound by the lowest-spec target hardware.”

“I think it will mostly matter to Xbox-exclusive titles, which will be able to be programmed to get every drop of extra juice from the machine,” Auger said. “It may also buy the new console a longer generation cycle. However, all developers building multi-platform titles are bound by the lowest-spec target hardware, so the only advantage I can imagine there would be stabler framerates on higher-end resolutions for the Xbox Series X.”

Given that Microsoft themselves have committed to releasing all their games for the foreseeable future on the Xbox One as well as the Xbox Series X, it should be interesting to see how long it will be before we can see developers take full advantage of the next-gen console’s hardware. The Xbox One S – which is the lowest-spec target hardware in this scenario – is a lot weaker than the Series X, after all.

Nimble Giant’s Quantum League is due out for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC later this year. Our full interview with Auger will be going live soon, so stay tuned for that.