Vampire Survivors developer Poncle has big plans for the future. The studio is using the massive success of Vampire Survivors, which has now been played by over 25 million people, to build new studios around the globe, while also working on 15 different games.
In a new Game Business interview with Poncle chief strategy officer Matteo Sapio, the company’s ambitious plans were laid out and explained. First off, yes, the studio is working on or co-developing 15 games. And those are just the projects in active development. There are even more in much earlier stages of conception. The plan is to make and release three kinds of games: Spin-offs, new IP, and Survivors-branded takes on different franchises. Vampire Crawlers, out now on consoles and PC, is the first example of a spin-off from the company.
The kinds of games Poncle is working on
“We [are using] the famous Vampire Survivors IP to experiment in new genres,” Sapio tells us. “We love card games, but we are not very good at card games. They’re complicated. So, we made the game that we wanted to play.”
Meanwhile, the recently announced Warhammer Survivors is an example of Poncle co-developing a new game that plays like Vampire Survivors, but is set in a different franchise. In this case, Warhammer 40k.
“A lot of people came to us and said: ‘Let’s do a collaboration with Survivors,’” said Sapio. “Survivors seems very simple, with simple graphics. But it’s actually quite complicated. If we have knowledge of the IP, we will [make it] ourselves. But a lot of times we don’t. If you have an IP, for example Warhammer 40k, which has decades of story and lore, we don’t want to risk disappointing the fans.”
So instead, Poncle has developed the “Vampire Survivor Engine,” which Sapio describes as sort of a “template” that contains all the “Vampire Survivors juice inside.” It is then giving other studios with expertise in a given IP access to that engine to help them build an officially supported Survivors game.
“We are a fan of Survivors games. Luca has 3,800 hours on Steam in Vampire Survivors. We want to play these games. With Warhammer 40,000, [developer] Auroch is the best guardians of the IP, so we gave the engine to them. We look forward to playing it. Obviously, we are giving them any help they need.”
When asked if there’s really enough room or player demand out there for multiple Survivors games, Sapio says that while Vampire Survivors is big, it’s still also “niche.”
“There’s a lot of people that don’t know Survivors. That’s why I think there’s an angle, and that’s why [IP owners] want to work with us. But…if it doesn’t work anymore, it’s okay. We had a lot of fun. We made a lot of money.”
As for the third type of game Poncle is working on, Sapio confirmed the company is working on two new games based on new IP. He didn’t share any other details.
Creating small studios to help build all these games
To help support all these games in development (as well as other future plans), Poncle is expanding and opening new studios in Japan and Italy.
“We had interest from Japanese companies,” Sapio told the outlet. “They wanted to work with us. And you know, the Japanese like to deal with Japanese companies, in Japanese and with a Japanese contract. Then there’s the talent. In Japan, there are some unique views and unique creativity. We found nice talent over there. And maybe we could work with some Japanese IPs. So, we thought it would be efficient to have a base there. That’s why we are expanding. Obviously, we’re based in UK. We’ll be Italy, we’ll be Japan, and then we’ll see.”
The goal is to still maintain Poncle’s indie feel and spirit. Sapio explained that these new studios aren’t massive. Instead, the idea is to have “little teams” of 5 to 15 people working on different games. The company hopes this will help “maintain” its indie spirit. It is also working with partner studios. Vampire Crawlers was co-developed with Nosebleed Interactive. Meanwhile, Warhammer Survivors is being co-developed by Auroch.
“We don’t want to be AAA or AA,” said Sapio. “We’re efficient with costs. We don’t take useless risks. We invest in people. So, with 15 projects, one can fail, one can go good, and you balance that.”
One place the company isn’t growing at the moment is in third-party publishing deals. According to Sapio, Poncle is pausing its earlier plans to publish other games developed by indie studios, calling its first attempts a “learning experience.” But Poncle will return to publishing indie games in the future as it tries to “build a community” to help support these future titles.
Overall, it’s ambitious for sure. Vampire Crawlers is really good. As is Vampire Survivors. But 15 games is a lot, and even if costs are low and the teams are small, it does seem risky to expand so quickly. We’ll see how it works out for all involved.
