Jasef Fares, the outspoken and ambitious creative lead of 2018’s A Way Out, is already hard at work with his team at Hazelight Studios to create their next project, though there have been some questions about whether or not this mystery game would once again be published with EA. Fares, however, squashed any of these lingering questions about this in a new interview.
In a conversation with Eurogamer, Fares confirmed that the next game that he and his team at Hazelight are creating will once again be published by EA. He stated, “Yeah, we’re with EA. It’s no problem. It’s super-good support. I don’t care what publisher I work with it’s going to be the same. This is how I work: I respect the economical aspect but nobody f***s with the vision – it’s very, very important. And they know it at EA now, and they’re super-supportive – super-supportive.”
Fares went on to say that this next project is still very early in development and that they’ve only been working on it for a handful of months at this point. “We’re just in the early pre-production stuff, but after this, in four weeks, we’re going to go full production.” Even once full production begins, though, Fares said it will likely be “two or three years” before they are ready to reveal anything.
While Fares didn’t give any hints as to what this new game will be, he did say that it will be both larger and longer than that of A Way Out. He clarified though that this isn’t because he naturally wants to make a larger game and instead that the project will have to be bigger in scope because it’s what fits his vision. “The next game will be longer than A Way Out but that’s because it makes sense for that game. Developers should focus on making the best game. It shouldn’t be a tick box thing. That goes for everybody – for the players, for the reviewers,” he said.
Since releasing in March, A Way Out has sold over one million copies which is a major success for a title developed by such a small team. Even though we won’t see what Hazelight’s next game is for quite some time, it’s good to hear that EA is mostly leaving the project alone and will allow Fares to have complete creative control.
For more of our thoughts on A Way Out, be sure to check out our review from earlier this year.