Hazelight Studios Will Never Use Microtransactions in Its Games

Abstract

Hazelight Studios won’t ever use microtransactions, based on its founder, Josef Fares.
Fares additionally promised that the studio will not be on the market and can by no means be on the inventory market.
Hazelight’s headcount has grown by roughly 23% since 2021, and presently quantities to round 80.

Hazelight Studios won’t ever put microtransactions in its video games, based on the Swedish firm’s founder and director, Josef Fares. This promise was shared as a part of a latest interview that additionally noticed Fares mirror on the potential of Hazelight Studios being offered, amongst different matters.

Based in 2014, Hazelight has developed a status because the maker of a number of the most compelling trendy co-op video games on the market. It managed to take action with simply two titles, A Way Out and It Takes Two—launched in 2018 and 2021, respectively. The Stockholm-based studio’s third recreation, Break up Fiction, is scheduled to debut on March 6, 2025.

Associated

Split Fiction Bringing Back One of It Takes Two’s Best Features

A fan-favorite characteristic from It Takes Two is about to be retained in its non secular successor, Break up Fiction, however with an added benefit.

Forward of Split Fiction‘s release, Hazelight founder Josef Fares sat down with MinnMax’s Ben Hanson for a fast video interview centered on the studio’s previous, current, and future. Roughly midway into their discuss, Fares proclaimed that Hazelight won’t ever put microtransactions in its titles. The business veteran then succinctly described the studio’s recreation design technique as being of the “no bull****” selection.

Hazelight Studios ‘Is Not For Sale,’ Founder Says

Elsewhere throughout the interview, Fares mentioned the latest gaming industry acquisition boom, acknowledging that there is been some exterior curiosity in buying his firm. Be that as it could, he himself has no real interest in entertaining any affords. “Hazelight will not be on the market,” Fares stated bluntly, including that the corporate can even by no means be on the inventory market.

Break up Fiction May Have Been Referred to as ‘Worlds Aside’

The interview additionally noticed Fares reveal that Break up Fiction was initially code-named “Break up.” Whereas this would possibly counsel the sport’s identify was set in stone from an early stage of improvement, that wasn’t the case—Hazelight additionally thought of Worlds Aside as a title. This moniker was in the end deserted for being too generic, Fares recalled. As for his newly voiced dislike for microtransactions, the sentiment echoes what the director stated in a mid-February 2025 interview with Eurogamer, when he asserted that Hazelight won’t ever make a live-service recreation. Fares’s opposition to non-traditional recreation enterprise fashions is one thing he is been fairly vocal about for years now. Again in late 2021, he stated he’d rather be “shot in the knee” than have Hazelight embrace NFTs in any capability.

Hazelight Grew Since 2021

One other takeaway from the MinnMax interview was Fares offering an replace on Hazelight’s headcount, stating it’s presently “round 80.” The determine marks a 23% improve from 2021, when he estimated the studio had roughly 65 staff. Because the technical calls for of recreation improvement proceed to develop, Hazelight’s headcount could comply with go well with—particularly if Break up Fiction approaches the success of It Takes Two or not less than A Means Out, which offered round 23 million and 9 million copies, respectively.

Supply: Eurogamer