Swedish developer 10 Chambers only recently released a trailer for Wolf’s Lair, its long-awaited foray into the shooter genre. But when one journey begins, another ends. GTFO, which has a very different tone from the studio’s heist roots and future, is currently receiving its final update.
GTFO’s farewell update aims to resolve outstanding issues [insert update name] Content that was previously phased out in a typical live streaming service will be added back. There will, of course, be a reality-bending narrative ending, as well as a series of challenging end-game missions for fans to dive into. 10 Chambers co-founder and GTFO narrative designer Simon Viklund said this was the game they had to make.
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“It couldn’t have turned out any other way,” recalls Wicklund. “Although I know we had to kill hundreds of darlings while making this game because we were a small team with a limited budget and time. Now that we’ve accepted the fact that this is the last update, esp. Narrative-wise, it feels great. It’s great that it’s coming to Steam now and I think it’s a great product given the circumstances.”
10 Chambers, as the name suggests, started out as a core staff of ten developers. Not all of these people were directly involved in game development, but GTFO was the small team that emerged from Viklund and other experienced Swedish developers. As GTFO has grown, so has 10 Chambers, expanding to take on large-scale projects like Wolf’s Lair.
In the roughly four years since GTFO was released, Viklund believes the team has learned a lot. “There’s a lot. Early Access has been huge for us. We’ve had a very positive experience with it and it’s been much more enjoyable than if we had put GTFO into players’ hands earlier. It’s also been very useful, thanks for the early feedback.”
In addition to learning from GTFO’s feedback, Viklund said GTFO has helped the studio gain confidence. Of course, there are also new challenges in building a company and passing on that confidence to new people joining. It’s great that the founders and current directors have such confidence. We can look at GTFO and say ‘We can achieve this so we can move to the next level, which is the Wolf’s Lair’. “
It’s clear that Viklund at least has a positive outlook on GTFO’s end as a live-service game, but it also begs the question of how GTFO has managed to survive over the past few years while other niche games have faded away. Survive? GTFO has never been the most popular game – as a team-based shooter that focuses on difficulty and has no in-game matchmaking, it’s essentially niche.
“I don’t know, maybe there’s lightning in a bottle here. Our passion shines, but I don’t know what it is!” said Wicklund. The game launched in 2019, a full year before Tencent acquired a major stake in the studio, but Wicklund did not comment on how much role Tencent’s investment played in the studio’s success.
Viklund also rejected the premise that many Payday fans cross over to help support the GTFO community. If you didn’t know, Simon Viklund and 10 Chambers CEO Ulf Andersson founded the company after working at Starbreeze for a while. The two have a long history together, working together at Grin in 2000 and Overkill Software in 2009, before the company was acquired by Starbreeze. The team at Overkill created the Payday series – perhaps the most popular PC looter shooter IP out there.
Despite their individual legacies, and some shared DNA between the GTFO and Payday series, Viklund is convinced the game can stand on its own. “GTFO does meet the needs of other games. I don’t think it competes with other games as much as you might think. The people who play GTFO are not playing what we think of as arcade games and broad-market games. “
Viklund continued: “I’m not sure, I have no proof, but I don’t think the Venn diagram of people playing GTFO and people playing Payday is that big of a crossover. Payday is so arcade-y and fast. At first I was hoping Being able to steal a little bit of the audience away from Payday with this game. But once we started and I started to understand the vision better and how slow and methodical it was, I realized it wasn’t the right fit for the same group of people.”
Perhaps it’s a combination of a small and slow-growing team, realistic expectations for a relatively niche product, Tencent’s involvement, and some good old-fashioned gameplay that’s helped GTFO break away from the live service of the past few years. Hell remains unscathed. Regardless, the game will ultimately occupy a rare position among today’s multiplayer games: fully functional and with a meaningful conclusion. In addition, it also laid a solid foundation for future work.
This interview was conducted via a trip to Ubisoft’s Danish offices, and the costs and accommodation for this interview were paid for by the PR company
