How Devolver Digital became the HBO of video games.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
What makes a Devolver Digital game?
I cant answer that question.
Justlookat its 2021 catalogue.
(It was an early Vulture favorite.)
(We called it ourseventh-best game of the year.)
(It has already being touted as amodern classic.)
(Its one of themost anticipated games of the year.)
I could go on.
My sole concern is that we get the best game possible.
is not the same as a developer saying, I have to make this game otherwise Ill die.
Devolver had discovered its Midas touch.
Since then, Devolver Digital has become something akin to the HBO of the games industry.
(Remember how we all spent last summer talking about a miniseries set in acursed Hawaiian hotel?)
We attempt to emulate that.
Of course, some of the more avant-garde entries in the Devolver itinerary do end up becoming enormously successful.
Its impossible to describe whatApe Outis.
Ive never played anything like it, which is absolutely the point.
I didnt know how to interpret it at first, says Cuzzillo.
But it was positive.
I had found a feeling I was trying to articulate withApe Out.
I was passionate about trying to reach that very specific feeling and a very specific goal, he continues.
Theyre good at finding diamonds in the rough.
To Lowrie,Ape Outrepresents the distillation of everything Devolver is trying to accomplish.
You have a developer who comes in with a clear vision.
When its that clear, it gets us excited, he explains.
[Devolver] is not about Heres your portfolio.
Do you have this slice or this genre covered?
It doesnt matter if all the boxes are checked.
You know the mealy half-enjoyment of a hollowed-out AAA adventure?
Devolver eschews that feeling for the feral, the distorted, the apes breaking out of prison.
You know it when you see it, and it makes all the unchecked boxes irrelevant.
