Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley says that sometimes games get too big and there can be consequences.

PCGamer interviewed Kingsley about the studio’s next game, Atomfall. It’s essentially a British Fallout with a little S.T.A.L.K.E.R. thrown in. We’ve seen them in Sniper Elite 5, Sniper Elite Resistance, Evil Genius 2: World Domination, and Zombie Army 4: Dead War. How did Rebellion survive the severe cutbacks after the pandemic subsided?

“It would be incredibly egotistical to just say that it was all down to our incredible ability to run a company. I think there’s always a little bit of luck involved. I think we control our budgets very carefully. We have substantial budgets, in terms of millions and millions of pounds, but we don’t have hundreds of millions of pounds. We try to make it so that we can make a really good game that has a very good chance of making a profit. And that’s really what it comes down to. I’d rather have a small, really good game than a really big game that doesn’t focus on what’s important to the player. We’re just very professional about controlling scope and cost. Sometimes we say, guys, this game is too big. Our games are about two-thirds sequels and brands, and about one-third more experimental.

It’s not a hard and fast rule. We don’t really have a lot of hard and fast rules. We actually have more guidelines, to quote a famous movie pirate. We have a responsibility to our team members and employees. We don’t want to be hiring and firing people all the time. There’s so much downsizing going on in the industry right now, it’s scary. We haven’t had to go in that direction, and we don’t want to go in that direction, so we have to keep a balance,” Kingsley said.

Except that Rebellion is one of the few companies on the PC that doesn’t actually remove Denuvo from its games. They should change that stance for the sake of game preservation.

Source: PCGamer