Hello!
We hope you’re okay! We’re now back from holidays, and we’re more excited than ever for what’s coming this year! But before all…
On behalf of the whole Ishtar Games team, we wish you the best for 2022! This past year has been quite the year for all of us, and a LOT happened. But we’ll get back to that. We wish only good things for all of you: health, happiness, love, success, and everything that you want! Although we’re just game developers, we hope to bring a little bit of happiness and joy in your life through our games.
LOOKING BACK AT 2021
So, we have quite a lot of things to tell you today! Our company was created in 2005 (yep, we’re old), but 2021 was the most important year for Ishtar Games. Let’s try to do a quick recap!
As some of you may remember, we changed our name in 2021! Ishtar Games actually didn’t exist as such until one year ago, since we used to be called “CCCP”. Rebranding our studio was a very important step for us, for this new name, Ishtar Games, represents our values so well: the goddess of war and love! For more info about that, you can read all about our philosophy on this page.
THE LAST SPELL
As most of you know, our biggest highlight of 2021 was the launch of The Last Spell in early-access. At the moment, the game has now sold more than 160k units, which is absolutely amazing for a small indie studio like us! And we currently have 92% positive reviews on Steam! It’s all thanks to you and your support, so thank you ♥
Although we knew that The Last Spell would get “some” success, we were VERY surprised to see it selling so much!
This changed quite a lot of things for us, because we actually had a hit on our hands, which was great news! As we’re writing those lines, we’ve already released 3 big updates for the game, and a major one to come in the coming weeks, but that’s not the end of the road! We’re starting to see what the game could look like for the v1.0, we’re happy with the foundations of the gameplay and we now “just” (aha…) have to produce more content and refine some systems to bring you the best out of early access.
We want to go as far as we possibly can with the concept so you can still expect great things in 2022 happening for The Last Spell!
LAKEBURG LEGACIES
The other big highlight of 2021 was the announcement of Lakeburg Legacies at E3 2021, during the PC Gaming Show!
This was huge for us, because Lakeburg Legacies is our first self-published game, so we were very proud to manage to get such prestigious coverage for the announcement. Thanks to that, we now have nearly 25k wishlists for the game! This game will be quite different from what we did with The Last Spell, but we’re very excited about Lakeburg Legacies, since this is a genre we’ve been dreaming to work on for quite a while.
Although the game is still far from its official release, the development is moving forward quite well, and we can’t wait to give you more info about it!
THE TEAM
In 2021, we’ve pursued what we started in 2020 and expanded the team a great deal. Since we’re developing several projects at the same time, we needed more people so this wouldn’t affect the timeline for The Last Spell! Just so you get an idea of our growth the last couple of years, at the end of 2019 we were a team of 16. In 2020, 6 people joined the team in various positions, so that was already a big step for us. And in 2021, the crew got even bigger with 7 more people hired! At the end of the year, we were no less than 28 and we’re not going to stop there! 4 more people are joining us on permanent contracts before the end of february 2022. Which means that, by then, we will have doubled in size in just 2 years of time!! More positions should open in the upcoming months so stay put!
We also were finally able to celebrate the studio’s 15th anniversary in September (and 16th at the same time since we had to postpone it due to a certain virus…). So the team traveled to Bordeaux for a week of fun and exciting announcements! It felt really nice to meet up after such a long time, especially since there were already so many new faces in the team!
On the menu: swimming pool, wine degustation, forest walks, apéro and a very sweaty Koh Lanta / Survivor-like team challenge… Needless to say that we brought the Totem home! 😉
Another thing we’re very proud of is that the gender-diversity in the Ishtar team also went up! We’re now nearing 43% of women and non-binary persons in the team and would be thrilled to welcome more! It’s also very important to us that people from the LGBTQIA+, POC communities and people with disabilities feel welcome and join us in this great adventure! In 2022, we want the team to expand and get more diverse. There is still a lot of work to be done to that end, but this feels like the right challenge to undertake. 🙂
NACON ACQUISITION
The last big news with our company that you probably saw in 2021 was the acquisition of Ishtar Games by Nacon. This was excellent news for us as a company:
– We now have the means for our ambitions.
– We keep all our creative independence (yes, that means we’ll still be able to make games with SO MUCH UI).
– We’ll finally be able to launch our very own indie publishing label.
So yeah, this was a big decision, but in the end, this will ensure us the opportunity to keep making great games in the future!
OUR PLANS FOR 2022
So yeah, 2021 was a huge year for us! And we’re not intending to stop now. Here’s a sneak peek of what we have in store for 2022…
Official launch of our publishing branch
What’s next for our games?
As stated earlier, we will make even more updates for The Last Spell, to make the game even better! For Lakeburg Legacies, we’re starting to be happy with how the game looks now, so this year we’ll finally be able to give you more info about the game! And rumor has it that you’ll be able to try it in not so long…
New projects?
Finally, there are some members in the team who have been working on unannounced projects for some time now. Making games takes time, but those are very exciting projects, and we can’t wait to tell you more about them!
Aaaand that’s all for today! This was quite a lengthy article in the end, but it was important for us to tell you about our plans for next year 😉
One more thing!
Since we rebranded in 2021, we’re very happy to announce that we now have a new mascot! Although we will always love Karl, our lovely penguin, he’s gone back to the South Pole. Let’s now meet our new mascot, Inanna the Owl! Zoé, our marketing artist, did an amazing job at making her cute and recognizable!
