'Cozy exploration meets true crime' on horseback is the MMO I didn’t know I wanted

Stockholm has a new game studio. Going by Blue Scarab, the announcement shared on the company's official website says it consists of over 20 'industry veterans' who have led development on games like World of Warcraft, Battlefield, and Helldivers 2.

To coincide with the opening announcement, the team has shared some details of its first project and revealed it's already well underway. Although the vast majority of details about it—such as a final name or even a codename—are scarce, we can start piecing together what to expect. Built in Unreal Engine 5, the story-driven MMORPG will be "cozy exploration meets true crime." Which is a sentence I never thought I'd say. 

Within the game, players will be able to explore an open world on horseback, which is pretty exciting to me, someone who spent hundreds of hours experiencing Red Dead Redemption 2 as a horse-riding simulator. Alongside the self-proclaimed "cozy exploration," the game will also challenge us to unearth a dark mystery which, I'll admit, I thought was assumed given the "true crime" theming. 

In the announcement post, studio director Craig Morrison says he believes, "there is space for fusing and evolving previous gaming and media experiences into something new and fresh for this expanded community."

To fund that mission, the company has secured over $7 million in seed investment, led by NetEase Inc and Behold Ventures. But that's not all. Other key investors in the Blue Scarab mission include Raw Fury founder Jonas Antonsson and Betware founder Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson. More details on less well-known investors can be found in the official announcement. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, CEO Colin Wragg seems pretty excited about all cashflow, saying,  "With the backing of NetEase Games we're empowered to bring our vision to life. We're grateful for their commitment to creative freedom, supporting expertise, and resources as we set off on this adventure." By the sounds of it, there's a lot of support going into Blue Scarab, which could be promising. 

With how many talented developers there are involved in Blue Scarab's first project, I'm incredibly excited to see how it plays out. Although I'd never thought to combine true crime and cozy games, it could be an exciting combination, and become a basis for more games along the same lines, especially with 'cozy' gaming on the rise at the moment. Games with a more comforting feel have become pretty sought-after for a huge number of players (including me), so it's definitely the time to release another, slightly different game into the mix. 

I'm keen to keep an eye on the development of Blue Scarab's first project, but more excited to see how the studio grows now it's in the public eye. Taking a refreshing new direction in a somewhat oversaturated genre, and with so many talented people behind it, could mean good things for the studio's future. I, for one, will be in line ready to play the comforting crime game when it does launch, and depending on how many hours I sink into horse riding this time around, probably for the next one too.