Hazelight Studios is a

video game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC ...

company based in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropolita ...

, Sweden. Founded by director

Josef Fares Josef Fares (born 19 September 1977) is a Swedish-Lebanese film director and video game designer of Assyrian descent. His brother is the actor Fares Fares, who has appeared in many of his films. He is the founder of Hazelight Studios. Biogra ...

in 2014, the company is best known for developing cooperative multiplayer games '' A Way Out'' and '' It Takes Two''. Both games were published by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

under the EA Originals label.

History

Prior to founding Hazelight,

was a film director. His first video game project was

Starbreeze Studios Starbreeze Studios AB is a Swedish video game developer and publisher based in Stockholm. The studios's notable games developed include '' The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay'', '' Payday 2'' and '' Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons' ...

' '' Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons'', which received critical acclaim when it was released in 2013. Following the success of ''Brothers'', Fares decided to found a new video game production company based in Stockholm, with the focus of creating a mature, story-focused game. He was joined by the core ''Brothers'' development team from Starbreeze, which included Claes Engdal, Emil Claeson, Anders Olsson and Filip Coulianos. The studio was announced at The Game Awards 2014 by publisher

, which also revealed that it would publish the studio's first title. EA allowed Hazelight to share space at

DICE Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing g ...

so that they could fully focus on creating their game. The company's first game, '' A Way Out'', was announced by EA at E3 2017. It was part of EA Originals, EA's initiative to support independent games. The program allowed Hazelight to retain full creative control while receiving most of the game's profit after the development cost was recouped. EA gave the team a budget of $3.7 million. The game was released in March 2018 and it received generally positive reviews and sold 1 million copies within 2 weeks. The studio partnered with EA again for their next title, '' It Takes Two'', a co-op platform game released in March 2021. The game won several awards during

The Game Awards The Game Awards is an annual awards ceremony honoring achievements in the video game industry. Established in 2014, the shows are produced and hosted by game journalist Geoff Keighley, who worked on its predecessor, the Spike Video Game Awards ...

, including best family game, best multiplayer game, and

Game of the Year Game of the Year (GotY) is an award given by various award events and media publications to a video game that they feel represented the pinnacle of gaming that year. Events and ceremonies British Academy Games Awards (BAFTA Games Awards) ...

. In January 2022, Hazelight announced that they partnered with Dmitri M. Johnson and his company DJ2 Entertainment to adapt ''It Takes Two'' for television and film. It was then announced in April 2022 that

Amazon Studios Amazon Studios is an American television and film producer and distributor that is a subsidiary of Amazon. It specializes in developing television series and distributing and producing films. It was started in late 2010. Content is distributed th ...

picked up the project to develop into a film adaptation to be written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller with

Dwayne Johnson Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor and former professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he was integral to the developm ...

Dany Garcia Dany Garcia (born November 29, 1968) is an American businesswoman, film producer, and IFBB professional bodybuilder. Garcia is the founder of GSTQ, and the CEO and chair of The Garcia Companies and TGC Management, overseeing a portfolio of bra ...

, and Hiram Garcia attached as producers under

Seven Bucks Productions Seven Bucks Productions is a production company involved with various platforms and mediums, credited with creating original releases for television, film, emerging technologies, and digital networks. The studio was co-created and founded by Dw ...

Games

References

External links

* {{Josef Fares Companies based in Stockholm Video game development companies Swedish companies established in 2014 Video game companies established in 2014 Video game companies of Sweden Indie video game developers