The video game industry has been a tumultuous place of late, with mass layoffs, game cancellations, and studio closures, not to mention ongoing fears about the role of artificial intelligence. These issues have affected developers big and small. One smaller developer that has endured and thrived is Supergiant, which just launched Hades 2 this week.
Supergiant was formed in 2009 with seven people and has grown to 25 today. The seven original members all remain at Supergiant today, and the company has never done a major layoff, all while never taking in outside funding, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. How has Supergiant achieved this? In an interview, the developer discussed that and dug into how the company will choose the next game to come after Hades 2.
What’s the secret?
Creative director Greg Kasavin, the former executive editor of GameSpot, said there is no “magical explantation” for why Supergiant has endured while others have not. However, one theory he has is that Supergiant has focused on staying modest instead of pursuing massive growth.
“I do attribute it to the value that we place on sticking together as a team, on keeping our ambitions relatively modest. We don’t have an ambition to grow big for its own sake,” he said.
This runs in contrast to numerous other companies in the gaming space. During the COVID-19 pandemic, video games flourished, due in part to stay-at-home orders, and many companies ramped up hiring as a result. Some of the companies that staffed up are now drawing back to pre-pandemic levels, resulting in mass layoffs.
The privately owned Supergiant has released five games to date, including Bastion, Transistor, Pyre, Hades, and now Hades 2. The company’s founders–Amir Rao and Gavin Simon–are former Electronic Arts employees.
What’s after Hades 2?
Hades 2 only just released this week, but people always want to know what’s coming next. Kasavin didn’t give anything away, but said the team will collectively work out “what that thing is that’s gonna make the most of us the most excited.” He said Hades 2 took about 4.5 years to make, so “we don’t have 30 games left or something like that.”
“(We) just try to make each one count and learn from the experience each time and take that forward and try to do it again–that’s good enough for me,” Kasavin said.
Hades 2 is Supergiant’s first sequel, and given the positive response to the game so far, it would seem fans might want to a see a third game. But we’ll just have to wait and see what Supergiant makes next.
GameSpot’s Hades 2 review scored the game a 10/10. “Hades 2 is a game that is essential to experience, with all of its parts coalescing into a memorable adventure that you will likely lose dozens of hours to without regret,” reviewer Alessandro Barbosa said.
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