Avalanche CEO: It Made Sense to Choose Xbox for Contraband Due to the Grandness of the Project

During Microsoft's Xbox and Bethesda E3 2021 Showcase, Avalanche Studios announced a new open world cooperative game titled Contraband, an sectional for PC and Xbox Series Due south|X.

Speaking to GamesIndustry, Avalanche Studios CEO Pim Holfve has now explained why Xbox was picked as the partner for this game.

We've had a neat relationship with Microsoft, and working with a first party has been intriguing equally well, seeing what that actually means in terms of back up and getting closer to the hardware. It's a new type of partnership for us. We've had fantastic partnerships with Square Enix, Bethesda and Warner Bros, but those are non the same every bit offset-party.

It made a lot of sense to work with Xbox on this because of the grandness of the Contraband project. It'due south not a concept we would pitch to every publisher.

Contraband will also be bachelor on day one via Game Laissez passer. Avalanche had a great experience with the subscription service, where they saw a lot of new users flocking to TheHunter: Telephone call of the Wild (made by subsidiary Expansive Worlds).

Our master key objective is growing our userbase... even if information technology's not ours directly -- in this case, it's going to exist Xbox's. But we know that if we grow the userbase, we know that the coin and revenue will come. The main motivator for united states of america as a company is not greenbacks, it's entertainment -- nosotros're entertaining vast numbers of people.

Game Pass has been actually great for usa, particularly if we look at our self-published title. TheHunter: Call of the Wild helped us prove our service model and Xbox Game Pass was fantastic because we were able to reach and then many more players. It'south a good way for people to endeavor [the game], and since nosotros have such a massive DLC catalogue for that title -- over 20 DLCs -- it's a beautiful way of getting people in, getting engaged and showing that it's a stellar game. Then people are actually tempted to buy more. So the business organisation model really works to our advantage.

Avalanche'south third subsidiary, Systemic Reaction, is also nevertheless working on Second Extinction. The post-apocalyptic coop shooter game is currently but available on PC and Xbox consoles, merely that may be because it's still in the Steam Early Access/Xbox Game Preview phase; there's no exclusive deal in place, and so a PlayStation release seems probable.