The 2D action-adventure masterpiece “Dead Cells” developed by Motion Twin Studio has been praised by countless players at home and abroad. It has been nearly 5 years since it came out in 2018. Through Gamesindustry.biz According to interview reports, the sales of this independent game have also exceeded the milestone of 10 million sets, and the update plan of the game has been arranged until the end of 2024, all of which are handed over to another studio, Evil Empire.
In the GamesIndustry report, I mainly interviewed Steve Filby, the CEO of Evil Empire studio. He joined Motion Twin in 2014 to be responsible for marketing and distribution, until 2016 when he became independent with other colleagues and founded the Indie Catapult publishing company. He talked about the journey since The development of Dead Cells.
Dead Cells has now sold 10 million copies.
We chat with Evil Empire, the studio founded by ex-Motion Twin staff that’s been handling the title’s DLC and just signed two deals to revive dormant IPs that are “big historic parts of the video game world”
— GamesIndustry (@GIBiz) June 5, 2023
“I actually joined Motion Twin back in 2014, before we actually started working on Dead Cells,” says Filby. A diverse job role because there’s so much to do. So from the first time we had that stupid idea, it’s been around Dead Cells.”
After running Indie Catapult independently, Filby was responsible for the release of Northgard developer Shiro Games. Finally, when Motion Twin decided to end the development of Dead Cells, Filby felt that this IP still had a lot to do.
So Filby established Evil Empire separately, and after the free DLC “Rise of the Giant” (Rise of the Giant) in 2019, he contracted all the subsequent DLC development work of “Dead Cells”, and the team also included many former Motion Twin members.
The report mentioned that Motion Twin is developing their own new work, and Evil Empire has the same dream. Although Filby understands that the follow-up DLC of “Dead Cell” has been well received, he does not want Evil Empire to be regarded as just a subsidiary team of Motion Twin. , and explained that the studio has signed two cooperation agreements and is determined to develop its own IP.
However, Filby clarified that “Dead Cell” will not stop there, at least the update plan has been scheduled until the end of 2024, and the studio has grown to nearly 70 employees, and is developing a new IP work at the same time. Early access will start in 2024, and another new work is planned to be unveiled in 2025.
The success of “Dead Cell” not only brought the success of the Motion Twin team, but also contributed to the establishment of Evil Empire. The best news for players who love their games is that these two studios will work closely together in the future. Continue to launch new game content and IP, including “Dead Cell”.
