Celebrated Ukrainian studio 4A Games (creators of the multi-million selling Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light) are planning to expand their AAA development capabilities by opening a new studio in Malta, making this their new headquarters. The existing studio will continue to operate in Kiev, Ukraine. "By basing our new headquarters in Malta, a member state of the EU, 4A Games will be able to better compete on the international stage" said Dean Sharpe, who now joins the board of 4A Games as CEO and Head of Business Development. "Malta offers fantastic incentives for game development, and we are confident 4A Games will be able to attract the very best talent from Ukraine, Malta and beyond." Key members of the Kiev office, including Creative Director and Co-Founder Andrew Prokhorov, and Chief Technical Officer Oles Shishkovstov, will relocate to Malta, and 4A Games will continue to recruit the very best talent in both Malta and Ukraine as their operations expand. "This marks the start of a new chapter for 4A Games," said Andrew Prokhorov. "We are proud of our achievements as a young studio, and humbled by the response to our output so far. The team is looking forward to this new adventure." 4A Games are renowned for Metro 2033 and its sequel, Metro: Last Light, based on the novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky. The studio continues to work on un-announced titles within the Metro universe as well as further, un-announced projects, powered by their cutting edge proprietary tech, the 4A Engine. [source]
This is awesome. Not only will they get away from the stressful situation in Ukraine, they will also more easily attract established european personnel (and not have to worry about power outages and sending people to USA to smuggle back computers).
Thought they said they were done with Metro for the time being. Nevertheless, glad to hear otherwise, and glad to hear that they're shifting to a more stable region for development.
I kinda feel sorry for the devs as individuals (it's not quite like being a refugee, but I'm sure they're not all happy about leaving). Still, overall, it's good news for the studio as a whole. One thing that I'd love to see, but is never going to happen, would be a coalition between CD Projekt and 4A Games to form a new game development stdio (the greatest developer minds that Eastern Europe has to offer).
