Today, former XCOM and Marvel’s Midnight Suns designer Jake Solomon announced the foundation of Midsummer Studios, a small indie company established with the help of several industry veterans who worked on games like Civilization (Will Miller) and The Sims (Grant Rodiek). This startup has already raised $6 million from investors like Transcend Fund, Tirta Ventures, Betaworks Ventures, 1Up Ventures, F4 Ventures, Krafton, and Day Zero Productions.
Solomon and his colleagues won’t be making an XCOM-like game. They are instead building a next-generation life simulation game focused on player-driven narrative. I had a chance to speak to Solomon about Midsummer, this new project (which will be released on PC early access at first), and the state of the industry as a whole.
What can you tell me about the founding of this new company? How did you choose the name and everything?
My family is Norwegian and I have incredibly fond memories of my family’s Midsummer celebration, which we still celebrate today. Honestly, it’s a good party. It is also a little bit about
rebirth, a look to the future, and gathering with those important to you. Creating a new company is a big step, and Midsummer was a good fit for what we’re trying to build.
You said you have 10 people now, right? Are you working from an office or remotely?
We have hired 11 people and work in an office together in Hunt Valley, MD, just a little north of
Baltimore.
In the future, when you need to scale up, would you be open to hiring remote workers?
We are actively discussing how to accommodate remote and hybrid team members as we grow the studio. It’s incredibly important to us that folks feel like they belong to the studio and our culture regardless of where they work. It’s not easy to get right, so it’s something we’re trying to figure out.
Your debut game will be in the life simulation genre, which is quite a departure from your previous games. Is that a genre you always wanted to touch upon, or was it a spur-of-the-moment situation?
I’ve always thought using systems-driven design to explore relationships is an interesting challenge. I’ve always been interested in building systems that facilitate player-driven stories. Back in XCOM: War of the Chosen, we added soldier bonds, and we arguably created a bit of a dating simulator in Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
Systems-driven games allow you to explore any theme: golf, building a city, managing soldiers, or leading little lives. There is absolutely a lot we are figuring out, but we feel this is ultimately still
within our strengths as developers.
One of the big differences compared to your previous titles would be the lack of combat, so there has to be some other way to resolve conflicts. Will that happen through dialogues?
Great stories require strong characters with competing desires. Our new game won’t feature combat, but conflict and tension will be at the forefront. Life Sims sit at the intersection of game systems and player agency. We’re trying to find that balance between managing relationships to
“play well” (so to speak) and also tell the story you wish to see. It’s a little early to discuss specifics of dialogues, but rest assured there will be tension!
Will there be daily tasks, like jobs, that players have to perform? Would those entail any mini-games?
Characters will go to their jobs in a small town. They can argue (or fall in love) with co-workers,
deal with certain customers. Jobs are a great way to expose the minute details of life and inject
big, major events. We’re building our first playable now, which will inform a lot of the moment-to-moment holes we need to plug. We’re not sure mini-games are the best fit, but it’s still early days and we’d be foolish to close off any potential avenues.
Is it possible for players to fail in their endeavors, and would the game account for that?
Players will absolutely fail! But it’ll be fun. Maybe they lose their job, get dumped, or botch a first
date. There are so many fun ways to fail in a good story. We think failure is a great opportunity to highlight growth and perseverance in our characters, which helps make a better story. Plus, the occasional failure makes success so much sweeter.
Our game will not feature a game over screen, nor are we terribly interested in failure putting up
“walls” and closing things off. In the spirit of improv theater, we see success and failure as opportunities to use consequences to inform the next part of the story and mix up the simulation.
Based on the press release, the game will focus on delivering meaningful player-driven stories. Can you talk about how you’re going to achieve this?
There is so much work to do here, and we are still very early in development. Our current focus
is to create the basic game systems that create narrative goals, conflict and relationships, and interactions within limits to accomplish those goals. We are trying to build choice-rich scenes
with all of the choices leading to telling a story.
Will the game have an end goal or end to a main storyline, or will it be more of an endless type of narrative?
The game won’t end. We want to create compelling, episodic stories you can complete or
continue. But each of these is a tiny snippet of an unfolding narrative. One of the best things about life simulation games is that they imitate life, which is enormous. As we support the game and hopefully see a mod community form, we are confident a creative community will create new stories forever.
You have mentioned people sharing user-generated content online, but what about proper co-op multiplayer? Is that a possibility if players ask for it?
We are not building co-op or multiplayer. This game is a single-player experience. We also think we can foster an incredibly collaborative, welcoming community of creators, even if they are not playing together in real time.
What do you think about generative AI-based NPCs, like those in the Inworld AI demos?
These are definitely cool. They definitely force the larger question of what they improve. Are
they nifty technology or do they make the game more fun for players?
Speaking of tools, can you share which engine you’ve selected for the game?
We are using Unreal Engine 5.
Will you leverage features like MetaHumans, Lumen, and/or Nanite?
We are not using MetaHumans. We’ll use a lot of the incredible technology that Unreal Engine 5
offers, but we are still prototyping our visuals and the technology we will use. One thing to note is that we want to build a small, sustainable studio. It’s important to figure out how to create a good-looking game with a style that does not require an enormous team.
Can you talk about the visual style you’ll be going for?
We intend to use a stylized look, but the question is how stylized? We’re still figuring this out and don’t really know at this time. The main thing driving our work is how important it is for our players to be emotionally connected to their characters on screen.
Do you plan to self-publish this game?
We haven’t decided this yet. At this time, we have a variety of options, including self-publishing, or partnering with a publisher to help us bring the game to market.
Are you targeting specific platforms?
We have a lot of plans long-term, but right now, we are focused on bringing this game to the PC
in Early Access.
The life sim genre is suddenly getting a renaissance of sorts, with Paradox and KRAFTON making new games and, of course, the new The Sims on the horizon. Do you feel like it’s going to be too cramped?
Even with all of these options, life simulation players are still underserved. There is so much still
to be done. These are all serious competitors, all of whom seem poised to offer something great to players who love life simulations. But, if anything, all of us are just scratching the surface of what’s
possible. The Sims created the genre 25 years ago with very few competitors. There are multiple
successful FPS Battle Royales and nobody says the space is too cramped. We are confident
we can create a delightful, distinct life sim worthy of its predecessors.
What do you think about the state of the industry following all the layoffs? Is the doom and gloom warranted?
Honestly, it’s terrible. Too many people have lost their jobs and it’s incredibly frustrating. It’s been nice to actually hire folks these last few months. The last few months have been terrible for a lot of folks, and hopefully, as Midsummer grows, we can provide a great studio home for some of them.
It’s a tough market right now. There are these incredible, over-the-top AAAA games that are impossible to follow. You also see amazing AA niche games that are more focused and successful. AAA sits in this awkward middle ground where it’s very expensive but hard to cover costs.
In many cases, we’ve seen budgets double or triple between one installment and the next one in a series. Should developers and publishers rein in budgets to avoid these mass layoffs?
I’m wary of telling other folks how to run their business. But I can tell you what we’re doing at
Midsummer. We want to make games in a small, collaborative atmosphere. We want to remain
independent. All of those things require that we stay relatively small, act and spend our money
in a sustainable manner, and make careful decisions on how we produce our games.
Thank you for your time.
