Dontnod Entertainment is a busy studio right now. In their latest financial report, the studio confirms they’ve got six titles in the design or pre-production stages. One of them is a collaboration with Focus Home Interactive, and rather than it being a follow up to Vampyr, it looks like it might be a new IP instead.
Over the last financial year, Dontnod ramped up production on two games they currently call Project 7 and Project 8. The former is an IP entirely owned by Dontnod and is being developed at the new studio in Montréal headed by Executive Producer Luc Baghadoust and Creative Director Michel Koch. The latter is the collaboration with Focus Home Interactive. As seen in the artwork for the game above, the title looks to be a new IP and could be an attempt to further explore action-RPGs as the studio’s CEO Oskar Guilbert once hinted. As well as these two titles, four other self-published titles are in the design or pre-production stages. Dontnod gave no hints as to what these games will be, but we do know they won’t be anything to do with the Life Is Strange IP seeing as the studio parted ways with Square Enix “a long, long time ago”.
Dontnod has made improvements to their self-publishing strategy. They aim to get “more value” from their original creations and IPs by self-publishing their titles, as well as increasing the number of their titles available on mobile in Asia. This is because there is “positive industry trends in favor of creators of high-quality original games that gain international recognition”.
The studio managed to increase their royalties by 83% in 2020, reaching a grand total of €3.8 million. This was mainly due to the release of Twin Mirror, as well as steady sales from their back catalogue. Both Life Is Strange and Vampyr did well, the latter especially so after it was included as part of PlayStation Plus and various other sales. Not included in those figures but worthy of a mention in the report was the €50 million capital increase through investors, €30 million of which came from Tencent’s minority stake in the studio. Dontnod’s next report will be on April 19, and hopefully they’ll drop a few more hints about their upcoming titles.
[Source: Dontnod Entertainment]
