Gaming Industry Veterans Establish New Development Studio
Recoil Games pioneers new Cinegames category of games that perfectly blend disaster movie settings with a strong cast of characters
Helsinki, Finland - March 28, 2007 - Finland's fast-growing games industry has seen the founding of a new triple-A design studio headed by several industry veterans. Established in January and based in Helsinki, Finland, Recoil Games Ltd. focuses on the creation of action games with the scope, feel and ensemble cast of disaster movies. This is a large untapped area of the industry and Recoil plans to lead the way with its innovative Cinegames design techniques. These games will feature huge stories, and require a large ensemble cast-often working together-to solve the many varied challenges, including internal human conflict, another area mostly overlooked in today's action games. These games will be released for nextgeneration consoles and PC.
Recoil Games is founded and headed by Samuli Syvähuoko (33), former co-founder and managing director of Remedy Entertainment, the company behind the hugely successful Max Payne game franchise. Mr. Syvähuoko's other experience includes helping set up Futuremark, the industry leader in benchmarking software, and founding Fathammer, a provider of 3D mobile games and technologies that was sold to UKbased Telcogames in 2006.
The other founders of Recoil Games are Technology Director Jarkko Lempiäinen, Level Design Director Samuli Viikinen, Design Director Aki Määttä, Art Director Mikko Kautto, Senior Game Designer Petteri Putkonen and Lead Concept Artist Hans Zenjuga. The founding team members have an average of ten years of experience in the game industry, having worked previously at companies including Bugbear, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Fathammer, Guerrilla Games (Sony), Housemarque, Remedy Entertainment, Treyarch (Activision) and Ubisoft both in Finland and internationally.
Recoil Games' first game development project is based on an original IP (Intellectual Property) concept and utilizes in-house technology as well as licensed third-party tools. The potential platforms of the game are Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
"The gaming industry is growing rapidly, and Finland has a strong cluster of expertise in the field. Founding a new development studio with a team of industry veterans is an exciting opportunity that has quickly attracted the attention of international game production companies and investors," said Samuli Syvähuoko, Studio Director, Recoil Games Ltd. "Recoil Games titles will focus not only on compelling storylines and state-ofPage the-art visuals, but also on superb playability. Our long-term goal is to become a world-class game development company by building original IP game franchises that will reach hit status worldwide."
Recoil Games is located at Kamppi Center in downtown Helsinki and currently employs 20 game development professionals. The company is actively recruiting new team members and has begun its first game development project with significant investment funding. The company aims to grow its organization to 50 employees over the course of the current project.
More information on Recoil Games' first development project as well as the investors and partners of the company will be available during 2007.
Further information:
Samuli Syvähuoko, Studio Director, Recoil Games Ltd.
Email press@recoilgames.com
Christina Forsgård, Netprofile Tech PR for Recoil Games
Tel. +358 40 571 9192
Email christina@netprofile.fi
Recoil Games Ltd. is a Finland-based game development studio founded by a team of industry veterans and focused on action-adventure titles. Further information: www.recoilgames.com.