11 Bit Studios is currently in the midst of a series of updates and expansions for Frostpunk, but the company also has a new game on the way. Tentatively given the not-so-creative title of Project 8, details on the unannounced project are currently scarce, but we heard a few bits of what to expect when speaking to the team at PAX West.
Frostpunk spun the management genre into a sort of morality play, but you should expect a different approach from 11 Bit on its next title. “We love that genre,” community manager Rufus Kubica says. “We believe it has a lot of potential. But we are not closing ourselves in this management genre. Our next game is going to be different. The only thing I can tell you about our future project is that the working title is ‘Project 8.’”
Frostpunk sales figures reached nearly 300,000 in little over a weekend, and that’s given 11 Bit quite a bit of confidence going forward. “We feel safe about doing future games. This War of Mine was a huge success, but it was a one time hit for a specific game during a specific time. With Frostpunk, we believed and hoped it was going to be the same, and we managed to do that. So we are very happy, and now we are hoping repeat the success with future games.”
That success is well deserved, too – take a look at our Frostpunk PC review to find out why. Even though the next game will be in a different genre, you can expect the morality-focused stories that have defined the last few 11 Bit games to continue to be a focus in upcoming titles.
“We believe that games, as a medium, should be closer to other mediums as well,” Kubica says. “If you’re thinking about movies, you can see Marvel movies and they are fun to watch. But then you have the alternatives like European indie cinema. We want to be in that spot with videogames. To create something meaningful, and something that will make you think.”