Ex-AAA devs team up to make a cult classic IP at Sharkmob

Sharkmob
Photo courtesy of VentureBeat

Fredrik Rundqvist, Anders Holmquist, Martin Hultberg, Petter Mannerfelt, and Rodrigo Cortes, are all names you might be familiar with if you followed the development of Tom Clancy’s: The Division. These names make up the core-team talent that is the newly formed studio known as Sharkmob who have announced that they are currently working on a cult classic IP.

In a recent interview, Sharkmob have announced that they have acquired the IP for a cult classic and are currently working on its development. Little information was provided however, if you read between the lines (and on them as they weren’t very caged with their hints) you can take quite a bit away from the hints provided by Rundqvist during the interview, along with the advice that a publisher is already on-board.

Firstly, they appear to be working on a competitive multiplayer experience:

What we play privately, the kind of games we love, are very social, very competitive, always multiplayer. The more the merrier. Of course, in our opinion, the pure mechanics of that are not interesting if you don’t have the right IP, the right setting, the right fantasy to get people really excited about the game mechanics we provide. I guess that also gives you a hint as to what kind of game we’re making.”

Sharkmob
Photo courtesy of VentureBeat

We are looking at a small to medium sized game, which is to be expected given the size of the studio:

“For me, a lot of it was just getting closer to a game again,” said Sharkmob technical director Anders Holmquist. “You get these huge projects, and you get so far away from the game that you’re not really making a game anymore. You’re making a project. I think that for me it was important to get hands on again, to be making a game, and not just some hypothetical project.”

We can expect a lot more of the developers individual creative talent and flair in this game:

“Those games (Minecraft and PUBG) would never have been done at a big publisher,” said Rundqvist. “They’d never fill all the checkboxes that you need to have to make a game there. They need to come from the indie scene, from people who believe in an idea and are free to do so.”

Nothing there that can solidly point us towards which cult classic they are delving into so we will just have to keep our ears open. Hopefully we will get more news during E3 if not before then.

The talent in the core-team at Sharkmob is through the roof, with many of the devs having worked together for over 10 years. The industry knowledge and know-how that this team possesses is sure to produce a very engaging video game, and I personally can’t wait to find out more.