After Netflix pulled the rug from underneath Monument Valley 3 six months after launch, its developer says it is a ‘PC first’ studio: ‘we are able to construct extra direct relationships with our viewers and group’

Monument Valley was an award-winning phenomenon on cellular again in 2014 that made its method to PC finally, as did its sequels and several other different video games by its developer, Ustwo. That studio has now apparently moved on from mobile-first improvement, as CEO Maria Sayans lately advised Cell Gamer.

“What has modified extra lately is shifting our focus to ‘PC first’ in our future titles,” Sayans mentioned, “reasonably than cellular first. This stems from a realisation that there’s a ceiling to how a lot you are able to do on PC and console when you find yourself perceived as a mobile-first recreation, and that you just make compromises each in product design and go-to-market methods when cellular is your lead platform.”

The set off for this was Monument Valley 3, which initially got here out solely on Netflix, being faraway from the service a mere half a 12 months after launch. “After working with Netflix for a number of years growing Monument Valley 3, the sport launched in December 2024 with a powerful advertising and marketing marketing campaign behind it,” she mentioned, “and 6 months later they advised us they wished to take it off the service. Quite a lot of video games had been taken off the service on the identical time, so I assume it’s associated to the evolution of their content material technique and priorities.”

Associated articles

So yeah, unsurprising that Ustwo needs to maneuver away from a platform so more likely to yank the bottom from beneath them with out discover. Fairly than making video games for Netflix and Apple Arcade first and porting them later, the studio needs to make its video games multiplatform from the get-go, with launches on PC as the 1st step. “By way of platform, the shift is that we now suppose as PC as the bottom, the place we are able to construct extra direct relationships with our viewers and group,” Sayans mentioned.

If, like me, you solely know Ustwo for Monument Valley—a nice puzzle recreation about mazes product of Escher-esque optical illusions, with snacky ranges well-suited to telephones—the studio can also be chargeable for a surreal turn-based ways recreation set inside somebody’s thoughts in addition to a nature-loving photograph safari that is serving to the surroundings in the actual world.