STUDIO PROFILE

The former Paradox developer charts a course into a future without Shadowrun or BattleTech

By Julian Benson

Having made his fair share of tactics games over the years, it’s no surprise that Chris Rogers, creative director and studio lead at Harebrained Studios, approaches the subject of his studio’s recent history with tact. “Let me choose my words here,” Rogers begins, before opting for restraint. “Going into the launch of Lamplighters League, we knew that there wasn’t a lot of energy on the Paradox side.”

Strategy-game publisher Paradox Interactive had acquired Harebrained in 2018. 2023’s The Lamplighters League – a blend of XCOM and 1930s pulp adventures – was to be the first product of that union. Three months before its release, however, Paradox laid off most of the studio’s staff, leaving it with just nine people to complete the game. “It was a busy time,” Rogers says, sticking to his tactic of understatement. “We’d had a lot of cooks to make the meal, and we didn’t have many left to serve it.”

Almost no sooner had the result been dished up to the public than it was declared a failure by its publisher. “The commercial reception has been too weak, which is frankly a big disappointment,” Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester said in a statement issued one week after launch. Meanwhile, at Harebrained, the battered team was focused on fixing bugs. “We had 300,000 players on Game Pass,” Rogers says. “We had this obligation, and we knew we had limited time to do everything we could.”

While it wouldn’t be public knowledge until January 2024, behind the scenes Harebrained and Paradox were taking steps to separate. Rogers describes the uncoupling process as smooth and mutual – “I’m thankful to Paradox for that” – and seems to understand its rationale. “The truth is – and Paradox has said this – their strategy became to focus on their core business, and our expertise was not that,” he says. “Look at our games. They’re not about painting the map. There was no way to go forward together.”