Finnish developer Housemarque has been working away on multiplayer battle royale title Stormdivers for a while now, but it seems work on that project is being put on the backburner, with the studio instead prioritizing work on a new, unannounced project.

In a letter written to fans by Housemarque CEO Ilari Kuittinen celebrating the studio’s 25th anniversary, Kuittinen stated that the developer was now working on what he describes as their “most ambitious and biggest game” ever, and that as such, work on all other games – Stormdivers included – has been put on hold. Their entire team of over 80 people (which, Kuittinen points out elsewhere in the letter, is the largest ever Housemarque has ever been) is now working on this new project.

“Now we are focused on delivering our most ambitious and biggest game to date, putting every other project on hold, including the development of Stormdivers,” Kuittinen wrote. “It is great that the whole company can come together to deliver this game, which will define the next evolution of Housemarque.”

He later went on to add that the studio has “never delivered anything at this scale before” and that the time to reveal the game “is drawing ever closer.”

“We are eagerly awaiting the day we can announce it,” he wrote. “At the same time, it is always nerve-wracking to anticipate what your reaction will be when we do finally complete development and the game is out for everyone to enjoy. We’ve never delivered anything at this scale before. The time is drawing ever closer when our publishing partner will reveal what we are working on, with the launch coming after that.”

Owing to poor sales for games such as Resogun and Nex Machina and the financial repercussions that followed, Housemarque decided to instead focus on games that would have better success in terms of sales. However, when Housemarque announced that their next game, Stormdivers, would be a battle royale multiplayer title, they faced quite a lot of backlash from fans. Just last year, in fact, the studio itself admitted that Stormdivers might not end up being very successful.

Here’s hoping whatever they’re working on now can strike a better balance between those two approaches.

Most games that end up being a failure, whether in sales or reviews or both, are either treated with silence by publishers/developers knowing they have a dud, or aren’t talked about openly until after their release. Such as Anthem, a game that was savaged critically, and only after its release did things came to light that pointed to a game with a truly troubled development.

It’s rare for a company, in any way, to cast a negative light on their own game before release. Yet, at Reboot Develop, while speaking with VG247, developer Housemarque has done just that in talking about their upcoming Stormdivers, a multiplayer battle royale game, saying that they think the game probably won’t be very successful.

They cite a lack of resources and a field of competition that has increased significantly in the genre since announcing the game almost one year ago, according to CEO Ilari Kuittinen. He doesn’t see a scenario where the game is a surprise hit.

“The problem is with us we always have to change our idea. We originally thought that the game would be a premium game but now it should be free to play. And do we have enough content to do that? I don’t know,” he admitted. “We’re kind of a bit short of money to fully realise what we want to do as a launch edition of the game. We’ll see. It is tough. Whether we’re going to succeed, it’s unlikely because of the tough competition.”

The game is currently in its beta phase, and as of now there’s no date or timeframe for when it will release.

Housemarque has been known for developing fantastic arcade shoot-em-ups over the last few years. From Alienation to Resogun, to Dead Nation, and beyond, their name has come to be synonymous with great arcade style action.

The trouble is, arcade style action, great or otherwise, doesn’t have much of a market these days. Which is why last year, the developer announced it was done with arcade style games, and would move on to doing something else. Which… turned out to be a battle royale game, something that understandably got a lot of pushback from their fans who are disappointed at what they perceive to be their favorite developer selling out to current trends.

Speaking about that, Housemarque’s Director of Self-Publishing Mikael Haveri and Game Designer Henri Markus said to GamesIndustry that the game was originally pitched back in 2015, so it’s not just them jumping on board with the latest fad.

“We’re starting with the pure PvP part of it, and we can bring on the Housemarque expertise [in PvE] later on. We wouldn’t be too put off if we happened to have boss-fights, or more team-oriented missions eventually, but we’re going to focus on having a good PvP experience first.”

They also talked about the criticism their new game has received, noting that they recognize that not everyone will be on board with what they are doing, but that they hope that when people play it, they will appreciate and enjoy it for what it is.

“It is [a good place to start], but but it’s also where you get the most shit thrown on you, because there’s a lot of expectations… You should see our YouTube comments,” Haveri said. “We have to take it with a pinch of salt, and now we’re hoping we can win some of them over. We know that not everyone is going to be interested, but when they get their hands on Stormdivers I hope they can be straightforward and tell us if there is something here.”

I am personally always down for more battle royale, and given the quality and polish we can expect from a Housemarque game, I have great hopes that Stormdivers will turn out well, too. It’s due out on PC next year.

Housemarque’s Stormdivers received its first proper gameplay trailer at Gamescom 2018 and it’s confirmed to be a third person battle royale title. Set in the future on an island with various hazards that threatens its denizens, Stormdivers features an array of powers and abilities that players can use. Check out the trailer below.

The basic gist of Stormdivers is that of the titular operators landing on this island, where a nano-storm experiment has gone wrong. The storm is now permanent, and devours everything in its path. Players can team up together or go solo to both defeat other players and survive the island itself. Loot, various items like jetpacks and shields, and abilities like cloaking and super speed can be seen in the trailer.

Ilari Kuittinen, CEO of Housemarque, stated, “With Stormdivers we are entering new grounds as a studio that for over 20 years has been known for creating arcade coin-op inspired games. We began its development when battle royale was still a niche gameplay mode, yet despite the number of BR games on the market now, Stormdivers will excite players with its fast-paced gameplay, metagame, classes and various events, all packaged with Housemarque’s trademark high-quality visual effects.

“Stormdivers is more than just another battle royale game, and we plan to roll out new content regularly in the future to continuously expand the experience. We invite everyone to check out the trailer to see what we have in store!”

That new content includes different modes, co-op PvE missions, new areas, new classes, and so on. So those groaning about yet another battle royale game shouldn’t lose hope just yet. Stormdivers beta sign-ups are currently live, so head over to the official website to enlist.

RESOGUN and Nex Machina developer Housemarque is venturing into multiplayer mayhem with its next offering Stormdivers. While we’ve seen some detailed screenshots and a few bits of information up until now, one game still remains- how will the game actually look? A new teaser holds the answer, which you can view below, with a proper trailer coming next week at Gamescom.

On the developer’s official website, head of publishing Mikael Haveri promised that the studio is finally ready to show Stormdivers to the world. “From here on out we expect to be opening up with a lot more footage on a much more frequent basis. With a deeper look into what makes this multiplayer game different from not only what we’ve made before, but also compared to the competition.”

Previous games like Matterfall and Nex Machina didn’t rack up sales, despite decent and strong critical acclaim respectively, so one would hope that Stormdivers has a stronger mainstream hook. In development for almost two years and using Unreal Engine 4, the game seems to be a shooter. That’s pretty much all we’ve gotten out of the teasers thus far, but it’s good to see that Housemarque is still working in the “shoot things” genre.

For more information on Nex Machina, which is fairly amazing for those who love the old-school Robotron-style top-down shooter, you can check out GamingBolt’s review here. Gamescom 2018 starts on August 21st and ends on August 25th, so stay tuned for more information next week.

Housemarque, the folks behind excellent arcade twin stick shooter games like Alienation and Resogun, announced earlier this year that, owing to the persistent failure of their games so far, they will be moving away from arcade shooters. They also announced that they will move away from PlayStation exclusivity into being multiplatform. The first game they make under this regime, they announced, will be called Stormdivers, and it will have Games-as-a-Service (GaaS) elements.

That’s all we have known about the game so far- well, that, and a logo. Now, Housemarque have broken their silence with two new images, showing almost obscenely detailed gun models. In and of itself, that tells us nothing- but they also showed off one image of what is presumably a location from the game, called the Harbor. You can see these images below.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that this is a shooter, at this point- given the environment they showed off, as well as the previously confirmed GaaS style elements, it is presumably going to be a co-op shooter. But we don’t actually know, so for now, all of this remains just speculation. Hopefully Housemarque answers these questions one way or the other soon enough.