Rebellion hasn’t been keeping the success of its newest title, Atomfall, a secret. The studio has expressed interest in making more games in that franchise. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, however, studio CEO Jason Kingsley has said that more Atomfall games happening will depend on whether or not the studio can find resources for projects like it.
Referring to studio CTO Chris Kingsley, Jason spoke about wanting to do more games in general, including Sniper Elite, Zombie Army, and Strange Brigade, as well as Atomfall, since both of them want to repeat the studio’s successes.
“I don’t think we got it just right,” said Jason in response to a question about managing the scale of new projects like Atomfall right. “I think that one of the things Chris and I want to do is repeat success. So we want to do more Sniper Elite, we want to do more Zombie Army, we want to do more Strange Brigade.”
“Now it looks like we want to do more Atomfall.”
Jason did mention, however, that Atomfall had managed to surpass the studio’s estimates for how well it would do. “We’ve done a lot better than our mid-range estimates, actually,” he said. “It’s nice when marketing comes back to you and says ‘yep, we underestimated our high-level success.”
He also praised the idea of releasing Atomfall on Xbox and PC Game Pass along with the title’s regular release. According to Kingsley, the fact that Atomfall was a smaller project than the studio’s usual releases benefited from being on Game Pass. “They brought their skills and their scale to bear on our small project, and it’s done really, really well for them, so they got a good deal, we got a good deal out of it as well,” he said.
Ultimately, the studio head believes that being able to manage the scope of its projects is what will help it in the long run. “We don’t deliberately fit into this mid range, but that’s what we can do, and what we can do successfully,” he explained. “We literally can’t afford to spend 200 million on making a game. We just don’t have 200 million.”
Kingsley had praised the title’s success on Game Pass quite a bit in the same interview. Among other things, he spoke about the value Game Pass brought to Atomfall since it encourages subscribers to try out random new games, which in turn helps with word-of-mouth marketing.
“With Game Pass, you can get people to try it, then as a result of those people trying it, they like it, and they then tell their mates on social media, ‘I found this game on Game Pass, I really enjoyed it, you should have a go,’” he said. “And then some of them are on Game Pass, and will [play] it. But some of them aren’t on Game Pass, and will also want to be part of that conversation. So, they’ll go and buy it.”
Atomfall is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review for more details.
