Swedish developerNeon Gianthas been busy of late. Following the 2021 release of its maiden title,The Ascent, the studio was acquired by Krafton in 2022 and has since been working on a new game with the working title Project Impact. The team, comprised of several experienced developers who have worked ontitles likeWolfensteinandFar Cry 3, is confident its upcoming game will make a lasting impression.
Game Rant recently spoke with Creative Directors Arcade Berg and Tor Frick to talk aboutNeon Giant’s journey to date. They talked about Krafton’s acquisition of the Swedish studio and how it hasn’t stifled any of their creativity. They also discussed Project Impact and shared a few key details about it.This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Neon Giant’s Journey So Far
Q: Can you talk about Neon Giant’s journey so far?
Berg:The very short version is that we madeThe Ascent, and it was tremendously successful. After that, it was the first time we could take a breath since 2018, when we started the studio. A lot of us come fromAAA studios. We have plenty of experience working on games that we’re proud of having been part of, but we weren’t necessarily aligned anymore with how games could or should be made. After several years, we reached a point where we said, “Let’s bet everything on us. Let’s figure this out together.”
MakingThe Ascentwas hard work. There’s no denying that, but we learned so much throughout that whole experience. It was proof that the way we want to make games does work.
Frick:We didn’t have time during the project to think about the future. Everything was about right now.Everything wasThe Ascent. Everything was Neon Giant, creating that culture, building that studio. With that success, we could finally pause and have conversations among ourselves and with other people. Like, “Okay, we now have the luxury of actually making decisions. What do we want to do next? Do we want to stay small? Do we want to go big?”
Then we found Krafton. We want to keep creating games in the same way. That has not changed, but we want rocket fuel. We want to be able to be more ambitious, but attempt to stay small, stay agile. Leave space for all thedevelopers on the team to leave their markon the product. That’s something we truly believe in, but we were also looking for a certain business stability. We were looking for a strategic partnership, but we just wanted to make games. We didn’t start the studio because we have corporate ambitions. We’re very upfront with what the studio is and how we work. Before Krafton, we thought to ourselves, “If we’re going to partner up with someone, it needs to be someone who shares our views and gets excited by the way we want to make games.”
Berg:We don’t want to present ourselves as something other than what we are and want to become. That’s why it was so important for us to take that time and ask, “What is it that we want to do?” We started this with a mission of how we want to make games as individuals, and the individuals in the team are here because they also want to make games the same way. That’s what was so important for us: to find a partner who will be excited about that. Thankfully, we found that in Krafton.
Once we went to market with the studio, we had the chance to meet with a lot of potential suitors. That was also a learning experience for us. It’s not every day you get to do that. The really nice thing for us was that there were a lot of opportunities for us to pursue, had we wanted to. Some we shut down fairly early on because they already had a solution in place, and they wanted us to fit into it, and that was never going to happen. No, we’re selling our package. We are Neon Giant. The conversations we had with Krafton were, from the first meeting, always positive. To this day, they still are.
The most important thing for us is the quality of the game. In the end, we absolutely want to createamazing games for players, and we want to create them in a way that fits us as individuals in the team. In one of the very first meetings with Krafton, they said they believe in what we are trying to do. We aligned on most things, including the most important thing for us, which is how we want to work and what we want to achieve.
Frick:The other thing that was very precious to us was that we wanted to keep Neon Giant as Neon Giant. That was also something they immediately said yes to, instead of asking us to remove the Neon Giant logo from things and put a Krafton sticker on it! They are encouraging us to keep our identity. So we still only work with our own staff, our own brand.
Q: How big is the Neon Giant team now? How many staff members do you have?
Frick:We’re now 20. We doubled it! Now we have pretty much two of each, backups if someone is sick, which makes a massive difference. There was a lot of hard work at first. We only had one animator, for example, and that creates a lot of pressure. Don’t get me wrong, everyone here likes pressure. That’s very important for the end process. But also, business-wise, it’s not necessarily smart to have no contingencies. We’re very ambitious, and we want to be very flexible in what we’re building. To do that, you need to have the right people.
Berg:When it came to finding the right partner for us, we understand how fortunate we were to be in a position where we could always say no, and we could always leave the room, because that’s where you want to be in a conversation like this, right? So we were always very honest about who we are. This is how we work, and this is where we want to go. There are no surprises down the line. I think that also resonated with Krafton’s attitude towards this venture. Thanks to that, there have been no nasty surprises along the way. So far, so good. It’s been a very positive experience for us.
Frick:Part of what we do is we also look at, who do we have in the team, what are we good at building? What do we want to build? What is it that really excites the team? We have the backing of Krafton, and we believe that whatever we make—be it the game we’re working on now, or the next one after that—you will always get the sense that it wasmade by Neon Giant. I couldn’t tell you exactly what that is. That is for the fans and the players to say, but I always want them to recognize that it’s a Neon Giant game. It’s part of the personality and culture that is just the result of letting people actually do their job.
Berg:That is one of the issues we had in our careers that we often saw. A waste of talent; frankly, too many cooks. We’re trying to remedy that. That’s why it’s so exciting. That’s also how we’re able to hire senior people, because this is what they want. When they’ve been making games for 10, 15, 20 years, it’s like, this is the challenge they seek. They know how to make the right choices and how to work within the craft. Krafton has respected us for being independent, like we have. We don’t have professional employees on site in our office. It’s just Neon Giant living in our Neon Giant bubble. For us, that works very well.
Neon Giant Talks Project Impact
Q: What details can you share about the game you’re currently working on, code-named Project Impact?
Berg:The game shares a lot of the DNA of our previous title,The Ascent, and a lot of the DNA of the studio itself. One of the things that we’re most passionate about is world-building and the world itself. A key part when we were makingThe Ascent, and it’s even more so now with this game, was that we want to make games wherethe world itself is a main character. The world doesn’t just exist for the player’s sake. And this is something we have doubled down on, both with the game itself, but also with the world we’re building and the people that we brought in.
There’s a very big focus on creating a world that feels lived in and that feels exciting to explore. But I also think that one of the differences is that we definitely want to makea world that is more interactive for the player. That’s something to push much further than what we did inThe Ascent. We are all technically inclined. We like using the latest toys and shiny things, so we will always be trying to push the bar further there. For us, it’s a matter of pride.
We really do enjoy people saying, “How could this be achieved with so few people!''. We love shipping games. We love it when you pay money to buy our games. But the process has to be fun as well. I think that’s one of the ways to get the most out of people and to get that 110%.
Frick:The process allows us to try and find these little moments where we can just excel and push really, really hard. We’re trying to be as transparent as we can as a studio as well. We’re not on Reddit orall of social media, posting all the time. It’s not that kind of transparency. But whenever we talk, we try to be as genuine as possible. You are now talking to us directly, you’re not talking to a representative. We don’t have that. We don’t have that extra layer. If you were to have a conversation about a specific aspect of the game, you would have it with whoever is driving that aspect directly. So we should always know what we’re talking about.
It’s important to have people understand that individuals are making this game, not some mega corporation somewhere pumping out products. Fidelity is something that we like to push. When we madeThe Ascent, we wanted to be very ambitious with it. We wanted it to be a reference point in the genre, the best-looking game of its type. Nowwith Unreal Engine 5, the team that we have, and the game that we’re making, we are pushing the fidelity even further, as much as we can.
Berg:It’s the same for interactivity. We really want to focus on games where you have a high amount of player agency, which is really important for us. We don’t want to make a pretty shell with nothing inside. We want aworld that feels reactive, immersive. As immersive as possible. As reactive as possible.
Q: What genre would you categorize Project Impact as?
Frick:Its first person, with a similarfuturistic Cyberpunk settingto whatThe Ascenthad. We’re actually going back to where we feel very confident, as the team has lots of experience with first-person games. The ambition and the aim are that this game will be a reference game. It’s going to be in every conversation when someone else wants to make a game like this. We see a lot of games coming out where you can see inspirations fromThe Ascent, which just makes us proud. Now we’re going back to where our careers stem from.
Berg:We have worked on thebig AAA shootersout there. First-person is where we shine. That’s our bread and butter, basically. So it’s a lot of fun now with a slightly larger but still very small team. We have the confidence to experiment and have fun, and push technology as we move into first-person. I think people will be quite amazed at what they’ll be playing once this is out, and once we start showing more. It’s a huge step forward for the studio.The Ascentwas a rather ambitious project for the team, but this is a lot more ambitious. We think people will be very surprised, in a good way, once we share more about it.
Q: Because of the setting and the fact that it’s first person, do you foresee comparisons withCyberpunk 2077, or do you think your game is going to be completely different?
Frick:To be fair, peoplecompareThe AscenttoCyberpunk 2077. I think there’s no way that we will avoid that, but it’s a very different game. We’re not looking at that when making ours. Our philosophy of being more inspired by other forms of media than games, not to get trapped in another one of those. We have been making games for a long time. Don’t get me wrong: there are some truly amazing games out there, but they already exist. We want to bring something new, but without reinventing the wheel.
Not everything has to be different, but we’re trying to stay true to whatever this project is. It needs to be that, and we look at worlds, narrative, and mood from other sources to find where we align. We have a smaller team, so we can be a lot more agile. We can take bigger risks creatively, and react quicker than we can in a bigger production. We intend to use that by making something a little bit riskier. One of the strengths of having a small team is that you can solve things quickly. We can make pretty intricate things because not many people need to be in the room for the conversation to happen. We want to lean in on that and make something that is different.
Berg:I hope as many people as possible will enjoy this game, preferably like 9 billion people. That would be a good number! However, I would rather have some people love it and some people hate it than it land flat in the middle. We’re trying to make something that appeals to as many people as possible, but I’d much rather it be in a space where maybe it might not be for everyone, but we want those people who will evangelize and say, “This is theGame of the Year.” I’d much rather have people feel something than nothing.
Q: When can we expect to hear more details about Project Impact?
Frick:As soon as we’re allowed, we will share that. This is also part of being a small team. We can’t work on several parallels at the same time. We can’t put 50 people aside to make a demo. We can’t have 100 people over there working on specific materials. Everything that happens is aligned with where we are in production anyway. If we’re ever going to record a trailer, it will be recorded exactly where we are in development at that point.
Q: The Ascent was quite heavily action-focused. How would you say Project Impact compares in that regard?
Frick:Well, what we can say is that player agency is very important in this game. For us, there is no wrong way to play the game. There will be a lot of freedom.
Q: Any other details about Project Impact that you can share?
Berg:The Ascentwas great to work on, but this is the kind of game that every developer wants to work on. You can flex your creative muscles and do something that the team here enjoys a lot, but’s stilla Cyberpunk game. It’s more grounded, though. There is wood, there are plants, stuff like that. It’s not all aliens and spaceships!
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