Chorus

I was impressed by Rockfish Games' strong 2017 debut Everspace, but while it's indeed the studio's first title, I have later learned that the founders Michael Schade and Christian Lohr weren't exactly newbies at making space combat games. Back at their previous company, Fishlabs Entertainment, they had been releasing for good many years a similar game series for mobile called Galaxy on Fire. Fishlabs ran out of money in 2013 and after brief bankruptcy proceedings it was acquired by Koch Media (now Plaion) who placed the studio under their Deep Silver publishing arm. (And Schade and Lohr proceeded to found Rockfish.)

Weird West

In my Prey: Mooncrash post I speculated there was more than family reasons behind Arkane Studios' founder and president Raphaël Colantonio quitting in 2017. Since then, in an interview, he has added that there had been "creative anxiety" involved with delivering big titles, having to make products rather than focusing on other things. Neither did he seem too happy about the Prey name that had been bestowed upon his last project.