4A Games in Ukraine has made some surprising announcements today.
For those not in the know, 4A Games was founded in 2006 in Kyiv by former members of GSC Game World, the studio who made the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise. 4A Games made a name for themselves as the studio behind the Metro 2033 franchise, inspired on the novels and world created by author Dmitry Glukhovsky.
GSC Game World’s struggles with making S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine was extensively, but 4A Games’ situation went under the radar. At the time, they were owned by Koch Media, who were themselves not yet bought by Embracer.
Basically, 4A formed a second studio in Malta and moved their headquarters there. 4A Games Ukraine in Kyiv decided to start operating independently, but mostly doing business in Eastern Europe.
This month, 4A Games in Ukraine has officially rebranded as Reburn, and announced their first original IP. La Quimera is a sci-fi shooter set in Latin America and co-created by director Nicholas Winding Refn and writer E.J.A. Warren.
Project lead Oleksandr “Sasha” Kostiuk revealed in an interview with Polygon that they had been working with Refn and Warren on this project for some time. As Kostiuk explains, La Quimera builds on what they explored in the Metro games, but goes in a different direction. In his words:
“While working on the Metro series, we were focusing on questions such as: How does a post-apocalyptic catastrophe lead to a believable future world? How did all the elements of the game’s reality come to be?
In La Quimera, we approached the situation from a different angle: How could we end up in a dystopia built on the foundations of the modern world? Does technological progress alone guarantee societal progress?”
Kostiuk also explains how they thought of the studio’s new name:
“We came up with Reburn with the help of a cool creative agency here in Kyiv, who will announce their involvement a bit later. The name means ‘burning again,’ but for us it has the meaning similar to rebirth or reincarnation in a new form, for the creation of a new game with own IP.
But we keep our original values of making great games that we would love to play ourselves and taking into account ideas from any member of the team.”
While Reburn haven’t revealed the full details of their project yet, the involvement of Hollywood creatives like Refn and Warren imply that they may have some solid financial backing for their new endeavor. And yes, that may turn out to be a Chinese company, not necessarily a Western one.
Regardless, for fans of Drive or Valhalla Rising, we’re about to find out what a Refn video game is going to be like, from some people who are very well versed in making action shooters.
You can watch the trailer for La Quimera below.
