Ustwo Games is pivoting away from mobile after deciding the platform no longer gives it a “solid base to build a long-term business around,” Maria Sayans said, as the studio tries to reset around PC and console releases. The move became more urgent after Netflix dropped Monument Valley 3, forcing Ustwo to bring the game to other platforms without publishing support from the streamer.
Sayans said the decision followed a strategic review completed shortly before Netflix walked away from the game, and that the studio has already seen enough traction from ports of Monument Valley, Alba; A Wildlife Adventure and Assemble with Care on Steam and Nintendo Switch to keep pushing in that direction. Those releases shifted hundreds of thousands of units, even if they did not turn into blockbusters, and Ustwo now wants to build on that as a PC-first studio making “meaningful single player experiences.”
The money, though, is the hard part. Sayans said Ustwo has been making titles that cost between £7 million and £10 million and can take three to four years to make, numbers she described as “crazy” for a studio of just under 30 people. At the peak of Monument Valley 3’s development, Ustwo had around 40 workers, and Sayans said the company may have been “a little bit too romantic” about hiring full-timers and offering long-term job security.
That pressure is now reshaping how the studio works. Sayans said Ustwo needs to lower costs and that if it made something like Alba or Assemble With Care again, it would have to do it for a lot less money. She said the studio was planning to bring in more contractors, a sign that the next phase of growth will be built less on headcount and more on keeping development budgets “decent” enough to make the business work.
Ustwo has been here before, launching games on mobile with support from major partners such as Netflix and Apple before taking them to other platforms. The difference now is that the studio is trying to make the port strategy into its core identity rather than a side route, and the next test is whether a smaller, cheaper Ustwo Games can keep producing the kind of games that made the studio’s name in the first place.