It is quite remarkable to look back at the humble beginnings of Housemarque a quarter of a century ago and see where our journey has taken us. Twenty-five years ago, as a fledgling game studio, we started work on two PC titles, Super Stardust and Alien Incident, which were eventually published in 1996. Back in those days the only realistic option to get your game out there was to make a deal with a publisher, who in turn would make an order to print a DVD containing the game, put it in a box and then ship it to retailers.

In the past 25 years the Finnish games industry has grown from a handful of developers to a prominent industry where now over 3,000 people are working on different games in multiple genres and platforms. It has been fascinating to watch how Finland has become a global player in the games business, attracting professionals from abroad to join world class studios in developing ground-breaking games.

Quite a few things have changed for Housemarque as well, and our path has taken many turns. Our journey has taken us to a fantastic place where we are pinching ourselves to make sure this is not all just a dream. We are working on our biggest and most ambitious title yet and have amazing support from our yet-to-be announced partner. Our team of almost 80 people is comprised of talented, smart and hard working individuals from all around the world, and it has been invigorating and inspiring to see how this game concept has turned into reality as more and more ideas have formed the basis of a truly incredible product. Despite not knowing if we would even get past the initial stages of pre-production, we have now spent almost three years working on this game, and now we are in full scale production and super excited to reveal more in the coming months.

Looking back on where we started and where the games industry is today is quite astonishing as back then we could only dream of living in such a digital age that players could instantly download games directly to their device(s), and now there are so many amazing, critically acclaimed games coming out that it’s hard to keep up with the influx of launches, much less play them all. However our continuing goal remains in maintaining our standards and develop unique, world-class games for our fans while still providing a great workplace that supports our team in developing professionally as well as living full personal lives. We also recognize that this work is never ending, as demands for creating top quality games are getting ever higher and the bar is raised every year.

So now we are focused on delivering our most ambitious and biggest game to date, putting every other project on hold, including the development of Stormdivers. It is great that the whole company can come together to deliver this game, which will define the next evolution of Housemarque. We are very humbled to have amazing support from our partner over the course of the past few years, and this support has continuously grown on a monthly basis.

In closing, Housemarque is very excited to celebrate our 25th Anniversary this Summer, and we are confident that we will pleasantly surprise our fans with the new game. We are eagerly awaiting the day we can announce it. At the same time, it is always nerve-wracking to anticipate what your reaction will be when we do finally complete development and the game is out for everyone to enjoy. We’ve never delivered anything at this scale before. The time is drawing ever closer when our publishing partner will reveal what we are working on, with the launch coming after that. This year will be full of exciting surprises, and we can’t wait to experience them with all of you!