New Hunter studio for Avalanche

The founder of indie outfit Avalanche has admitted that the number of active users on MMO The Hunter has “fallen drastically” since last year, but the group is readying several big moves to breathe new life into the free-to-play title.

“What’s happening with The Hunter is that we’re going to announce a strategic change with Avalanche,” CEO Christofer Sundberg told Develop.

“What we are going to do is start up a new studio, with separate management, that will be able to focus 100 per cent on the game. We will own the studio but it needs to be managed as a separate studio; not as Avalanche,” he said.

Avalanche announced last week that it had acquired the rights to The Hunter from fallen partner Emote Games, though a number of users have turned their back on the game since its owners broke apart. Sundberg insists that his studio is driven to bring those users back.

“The Hunter is a huge IP for us,” he said. “It is actually the biggest investment we’ve ever put into our own IP, so it’s super important. We have a responsibility to ourselves, our employees, and the community that we have promised to take care of this game and make it what we really want it to be.

“Unfortunately, the game was just starting to really kick off just as the problems started last year. There is a lot of work to be done to gain back the confidence of the community, so we have to work hard on that.

“We are going to release some new things for free so people come back on board,” he added.

Meanwhile, as the developer gets ready to open a new studio, Avalanche also confirmed it is working on an entirely new project – with Just Cause 2 now near completion and needing far fewer staff.

Read more about that new proect here, or read part one of our interview with Sundberg here.