Techland is a large video game developer and publisher based out of Poland best known for the series Dying Light. Techland employs hundreds of people some of whom stay while others eventually leave. Of the ones that have left, 10 decided to come together under a new publishing studio, Untold Tales.
Untold Tales is a New Indie Game Publisher Founded by Former Techland Employees
Formally announced earlier today, Untold Tales is a new indie publisher comprised of 10 ex-Techland devs. Leading the charge as CEO is Maciej Łączny who served as the Head of Process and Project Management at Techland.
Joining him are Grzegorz Drabik as VP, Head of Business Development, and Paweł Skaba as VP, Head of Marketing.
Elaborating on the fact that Untold Tales is made up of former Techland employees in the official press release, Paweł Skaba said:
“As of now there’s around 10 of us in total. We all left Techland at various points in our careers to join other teams and endeavours, but mainly it was to build up experience and knowhow outside the AAA echo chamber. We’ve now been part of multiple game launches, worked with devs from all over the world and ridden the waves of changes that keeps proving there needs to be more agile publishers who treat devs like partners and not manufacturers.”
In the press release, Maciej Łączny notes that Untold Tales plans to focus on “1 or 2 games at a time” rather than juggle multiple developers at once.
“Being selective and only focusing on 1 or 2 games at time ensures our devs are taken care of both during and after production and not feel like they’re just another name among 10 others we’re juggling. We also want them to feel they’re allowed to focus on putting their game out where they are wanted. Times have changed significantly in how best to put a game out and that also means some platforms are better than others for certain games. It just doesn’t make sense to force devs to be everywhere to try to maximise exposure.”
Grzegorz Drabik added to this, saying that Untold Tales aims to have “very open and transparent agreements” with decisions based on data and community feedback. He went on to talk about what gamers can expect from the games published by Untold Tales.
“As for players, expect honest conversations, clear responses and no ludicrous 3 tiered pre-order campaigns with paid DLC waiting in the wings for a month later. We’ll ensure our games are supported post release as best as possible, be it with free updates or with bigger content if the dev team is onboard. It’s going to be a very clear ‘What you bought is what was the full game’ approach here from the start.”
The first two games that Untold Tales will publish include The Hong Kong Massacre from Swedish developer VRESKI and Beautiful Desolation from South African developer The Brotherhood.
The press release mentions, “A third unannounced PC and console title is currently in the works for a later reveal.”
The Hong Kong Massacre previously released on PC via Steam back in January of 2019. It seems like Untold Tales is helping with the game’s console release on Nintendo Switch and PS4.
Likewise, Beautiful Desolation released on Steam back in February of this year, with Untold Tales coming in to help with the game’s Nintendo Switch release.
We’re excited to see both of these titles ported to console, and are looking forward to hearing more about the unannounced title that Untold Tales plans to reveal in the future.
For more on Untold Tales, be sure to check out their official website.
