The Chinese Room expands by 17, hopes to double in size by end of 2019

The Chinese Room has announced it has added 17 new staff "across a variety of disciplines" to its team as it gears up for "new, original titles".

The Brighton-based studio came to prominence with its exploratory narrative games Dear Esther and the critically-acclaimed Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, as well as creating Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and Google Daydream exclusive So Let Us Melt. New owners Sumo Digital recently appointed Ed Daly as the new studio director of The Chinese Room.

The new hires include John McCormack (art director), Nick Slaven (technical director), and Rob McLachlan (lead designer). New artists and animators include Ben Matthews, Darren Farmer, Tim Turner, Laura Dodds, James Rutter, Jasdev Singh Atwal, Tim Meredith, Volker Pajatsch, Michele Nucera, and Sophie Blakemore. Manos Agianniotakis and Will Traynor join the team as designers, whilst Stuart Findlater and Joe Wheater are new to the programming team.

"I’m delighted to have such a range of new talent and experience on board, and we’re not done yet," said Ed Daly, studio director, The Chinese Room. "It’s been particularly rewarding to have so many talented people show their passion for joining The Chinese Room and for the games we will be making here."

"We’re hard at work on a great new game and it’s fantastic to have brought together such an amazing bunch of talented developers to help realise it," added creative director, Dan Pinchbeck. "We’ve got a brilliant mix of industry veterans and rising stars and it’s really exciting to see the studio keep evolving and growing."

Sumo Digital bought The Chinese Room in a surprise move in August. The move is an important one for Sumo, which IPO late last year, with the company having previously been almost exclusively a work-for-hire studio. The acquisition will at least put the company into the space of creating and managing its own IP, though whether it chooses to self-publish or partner remains to be seen.

The acquisition becomes the fifth studio under the recently-floated Sumo Group, after the buyout of CCP Newcastle at the start of the year. TCR joins Sumo’s other operations in Sheffield, Nottingham, Newcastle, and Pune, India.

The Chinese Room is currently still recruiting for a "brand new title".