Hazelight Studios

Hazelight Studios is a video game development company based in Stockholm, Sweden. Founded by director Josef Fares in 2014, the company was most known for developing cooperative multiplayer games such as A Way Out and It Takes Two. Both games were published by Electronic Arts under the EA Originals label.

Hazelight Studios
TypePrivate
IndustryVideo games
Founded2014 (2014)
FounderJosef Fares
Headquarters
Stockholm
,
Sweden
Key people
Oskar Wolontis (studio manager)
Products
Number of employees
65
Websitehazelight.se

History
Josef Fares, founder and creative director of the studio.

Prior to founding Hazelight, Josef Fares was a film director. His first video game project was Starbreeze Studios' Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, which received critical acclaim when it was released in 2013. Following the success of Brothers, Fares decided to found a new video game production company based in Stockholm, Sweden, with the focus of creating a mature, story-focused game.[1] He was joined by the core Brothers development team from Starbreeze, which included Claes Engdal, Emil Claeson, Anders Olsson and Filip Coulianos. The studio was announced at The Game Awards 2014 by publisher Electronic Arts, which also revealed that it would publish the studio's first title. EA allowed Hazelight to share space at DICE so that they can fully focus on creating their game.[2]

The company's first game, A Way Out, was announced by EA at E3 2017. It was part of EA Originals, EA's initiative to support independent games. The program allowed Hazelight to retain full creative control while receiving most of the game's profit after development cost was recouped. EA gave the team a budget of $3.7 million.[3] The game was released in March 2018 and it received generally positive reviews and sold 1 million copies within 2 weeks.[4] The studio partnered with EA again for their next title, It Takes Two, a co-op platform game set to be released in March 2021.[5]

Games
YearTitlePlatform(s)Publisher
2018 A Way Out Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One Electronic Arts
2021 It Takes Two Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

References
  1. Mahardy, Mike (May 3, 2017). "Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Creator Announces Hazelight Studio". IGN. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
  2. Suszek, Mike (December 8, 2014). "Here's that teaser from Brothers dev's new studio, Hazelight". Engadget. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
  3. Fares, Josef (June 11, 2017). "A Way Out creator Josef Fares: 'If you don't like it, you can break my legs'". VentureBeat. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
  4. Minotti, Mike (April 13, 2018). "A Way Out passes 1 million sold". VentureBeat. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
  5. Nunneley, Stephanny (December 11, 2020). "Hazelight reveals co-op adventure It Takes Two at The Game Awards 2020". VG247. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
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