Hazelight Studios’ co-op action adventure, A Way Out, was picked up by Electronic Arts as part of its EA Originals program, which funds small indie titles. However, the publishing giant was a little skeptical about the title, only to end up selling nearly 3.5 million copies of it.
That’s according to the game’s director and Hazelight founder Josef Fares, who told IGN that 3.5 million is a huge milestone for a small team of 30-35 developers. He said that he stands by his ideas and passions, and that “sometimes you need to f**k s**t up and really go with what you truly believe in.”
Fares added:
When I believe in something, nothing can stop me. Obviously no one believed in [A Way Out] – not even EA thought it would sell, but they still believed in me. I didn’t care. I was like, ‘This is going to happen.’ Now, we’ve sold almost 3.5 million units of that game. These numbers for a small team of 30, 35 people are madness, you know? And at 3.5 million units sold, that means that, I don’t know, almost seven million people played this game, which is crazy.
Now it’s proven but, for me, the important thing was to follow your passion and what you believe in. I do believe that there might be someone in the industry who wanted to try this kind of game, but they didn’t really dare to because they were afraid of what could happen.
Undeterred, Fares is working on his next game, It Takes Two. The co-op action adventure will release on March 26th. Its publisher is none other than EA.
[Source: IGN]