Earlier this yr, head of Lyrical Games Blake Rochkind left writer Private Division and his place as head of enterprise growth. “It was just a pure time for me to go away,” Rochkind tells GamesIndustry.biz.
Following layoffs at Private Division in Could 2024 – and the closure of Roll7 and Intercept Games – mother or father firm Take-Two Interactive confirmed in November that it had offered the writer for an undisclosed sum to an undisclosed purchaser.
When requested what Take-Two ‘s firm line was relating to the sale, he advised us he did not want it. “I had a entrance row seat,” says Rochkind. “I believe everybody knew the rating there.”
In January 2025, Bloomberg reported the customer was Haveli Investments, which was bringing in former Annapurna Interactive employees to handle Private Division’s portfolio. The writer was later renamed to Fictions, and extra Private Division employees had been laid off on account of the acquisition.
Unable to go into specifics about when he felt the tides change at Private Division, Rochkind merely says the writer was impacted by the “similar shift” that affected others within the trade, with macroeconomic occasions making Take-Two Interactive “view the enterprise otherwise.”
“From the time Private Division was an concept inside Take-Two to when Private Division was offered, Take-Two turned a majorly completely different firm,” explains Rochkind. “I believe, on the finish of the day, it turned very exhausting for an organization like Private Division to make an impression to one thing like Take-Two.”
“I believe the vibe was, ‘you are both all in otherwise you’re all out on the brand new factor’. And I finally selected the latter.”
Blake Rochkind, head of Lyrical Games
A month after Fictions took over, Rochkind quietly left the writer after nearly 5 years.
“I had guided Private Division by way of some fairly uneven waters at Take-Two , frankly, after which helped navigate that complete personal fairness factor,” he tells us.
“It was loads. It additionally occurred to coincide with my first yr as a father, after which, it was just kind of a pure factor. I believe the vibe was, ‘you are both all in otherwise you’re all out on the brand new factor’. And I finally selected the latter.”
A brand new enterprise
In March 2025, just a month after leaving Private Division, Rochkind and Lyrical Media CEO and founder, Alexander Black, formally began Lyrical Games, a brand new, privately funded impartial video games writer.
The pair met throughout COVID-19, when Black was beginning his impartial manufacturing firm (now Lyrical Games’ mother or father firm), Lyrical Media. On the time, issues had been “fairly good” at Private Division, says Rochkind, however “when issues received just a little rockier, that is when he and I began speaking about what this truly could possibly be.”
On the primary day of GDC 2025 in March, Lyrical Games started enterprise.
In a tumultuous gaming panorama, new, indie-focused publishers are welcome (and uncommon). Rochkind agrees it is exhausting to begin a brand new writer proper now, however believes the “tremendous cycle” the trade has been in has ended, and a brand new cycle is starting, making it a “higher time to begin one thing than it was two or three years in the past.”
That logic is a big a part of Lyrical Games’ thesis.
“I believe the conversations that we have been having with builders to date have borne that out,” he explains. “Individuals are very excited that there is a new entrant, frankly, a brand new entrant that’s funding issues.
“Individuals are very excited that there is a new entrant, frankly, a brand new entrant that’s funding issues.”
Blake Rochkind, head of Lyrical Games
“I assumed I knew how unhealthy it was on the market, till I introduced to my community that, ‘hey, we’re open for enterprise, we’re funding issues, we’re a brand new writer’. The variety of people who find themselves like, ‘Oh my god, you guys are like an oasis within the desert’ is actually gratifying and clearly scary, as a result of, after all, we will solely do a lot. We’re not going to signal each recreation, and we now have to select properly.”
One other pillar of Lyrical Games’ thesis is its focus on high-tier (or Triple-I) indie video games. Rochkind refutes that the gaming trade at the moment has a “misplaced center,” a time period usually used to describe video games which can be extra polished than your common indie recreation, however which handle to be worthwhile with out the finances of a AAA finances.
“I believe perhaps there was a short second in time when that was true,” Rochkind explains. “I just assume it relies upon on what you assume the misplaced center is.
“I believe when individuals talked in regards to the misplaced center, what they meant was $50 million video games that would compete with the $100 million video games. However what I truly assume we’re seeing, for a wide range of causes, is diminishing returns on tech.”
“There’s solely so many pixels you may push on a 16 by 9 display,” Rochkind continues. “Once I was developing, it was all in regards to the verisimilitude of graphics, how practical can this recreation be. And that is not the world we dwell in now.”
Rochkind factors to Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as a main instance of the sort of recreation the writer is concentrating on. “That is a recreation that I occur to know the finances of,” Rochkind says. “I noticed the pitch at Private Division, and I attempted to pursue it there.”
Neither Sandfall Interactive nor writer Kepler Interactive has ever publicly confirmed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s finances. Nevertheless, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz earlier this year, Kepler Interactive portfolio director Matthew Handrahan mentioned he was “certain Mirror’s Edge and Vanquish price extra.”
“If we now have a type of in our life as a label, that might be a dream,” Rochkind continues. “It reveals what’s potential from a small staff, smaller finances. And for those who truly examine it aspect by aspect to one thing like Ultimate Fantasy, it does not maintain up graphically, but it surely’s visually adequate that the opposite parts of it, which can be unbelievable, can shine by way of.”
A standard thread
As such, Lyrical Games desires to primarily again “3D indies,” however that is not essentially a hard-and-fast rule. Extra particularly, Rochkind explains, Lyrical Games is concentrating on “video games which can be reaching above and gesture in direction of being triple A however are usually not AAA.”
Rochkind does not want to share the precise manufacturing finances vary the writer has in thoughts, as that determine is a “transferring goal,” however confirms that the “overwhelming majority” of Lyrical Games’ titles will likely be multi-million greenback initiatives that retail for between $30 and $60.
The writer has already signed three titles, together with the subsequent recreation from Homeworld 3 developer, Blackbird Interactive.
Whereas Rochkind at the moment stays tight-lipped in regards to the different two, he reveals that the writer’s first recreation will likely be introduced at this yr’s Gamescom, with one other announcement coming “someday this fall.”
“I can not converse particularly [about the other two studios], however there are a couple of widespread threads I see between all three corporations,” he says. “One, they’ve all shipped titles earlier than as a studio, not a prerequisite, however I might say it is one thing that we search for after we speak to builders.
“And I say shipped collectively as a result of that is an essential distinction. There have been many, many groups which have began from AAA veterans beginning a brand new studio, and it is just robust.”
The opposite predominant threads are that every of the studios is making, what Rochkind calls, “very prime quality” indie video games, and that they’ve a “holistic” imaginative and prescient for his or her recreation, which he describes as “any person who desires to have a seat on the desk” for conversations on the whole lot from branding and pricing.
Rochkind admits that these three studios, and lots of others for that matter, may self-publish their video games, however believes his seasoned staff’s experience (not to point out the writer’s funding) will assist its builders “tremendously.”
A lean, imply staff
At present, Lyrical Games is a core staff of six (together with Rochkind), consisting of veterans from Private Division, Devolver Digital, Humble Games, and Microsoft.
Whereas the writer has confirmed that Roger Kurtz, former head of manufacturing at Private Division is on board, Rochkind will not reveal who else is on the staff.
Whereas the plan is to develop the staff, the goal will not be to “construct a behemoth writer.”
“We want to construct a staff that’s lean, imply, however actually, actually skilled, actually robust,” Rochkind explains.
“I by no means want to have a sense of needing to feed the beast the place it is like, ‘Oh, I’ve all these individuals working for me, what are we doing in This autumn 2028?” That is one thing I very a lot want to keep away from, as a result of inevitably nice alternatives come your means, and I want to ensure that we can be found, each bandwidth-wise and financially, to capitalize when a tremendous recreation comes our means.”
“I by no means want to have a sense of needing to feed the beast”
Blake Rochkind, head of Lyrical Games
Rochkind believes the staff will keep “lean,” and whereas he does not want to verify any exhausting numbers, he predicts Lyrical Games will “at all times be within the low double digit of employees.”
Lyrical Games sounds prefer it’s financially lean, too, with Rochkind stating that the writer has “important backing” behind it.
“I believe we will sort of afford to do something if it is sensible,” Rochkind says when requested if there is a exhausting cap on its publishing finances. “If it makes enterprise sense, I believe we will do it, and we will make the case to our backers, and they’re going to again us. That is my sense to date.”
Rochkind goes on to clarify that the staff’s precedence is to help its developer companions, whereas “staying comparatively small.”
“I don’t have a quantity in thoughts. I do not want to ever have a quota,” he continues. “It is extra essential to have high quality over amount.
“If there is a yr the place we’re solely placing out one recreation, two video games, as a result of that is all we actually believed in, I believe that is completely wonderful. And I want to ensure that the enterprise is sized in order that that’s completely wonderful. I by no means want to be launching video games weeks aside, if we will keep away from it. I can just inform you that we’re not making an attempt to be a quantity play. That is not the objective right here.”
Not Private Division 2.0
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Rochkind desires to make it clear: he has “no exhausting emotions” for Take-Two, or about its sale. “It is just enterprise,” he stresses, however after leaving the writer, he “did not want to just do Private Division 2.0.”
“That may be the best factor for me to do, to rent a bunch of individuals I labored with earlier than,” he says. “I like Private Division, discovered loads from Private Division, and am not operating away from Private Division both, however actually want to draw from different individuals’s expertise.”
“This isn’t about constructing a billion-dollar empire”
Blake Rochkind, Lyrical Games
So as to differentiate itself from different publishers, Lyrical Games has one easy goal: “To be essentially the most collaborative and clear writer within the enterprise.”
“This isn’t about constructing a billion-dollar empire,” Rochkind explains. “Frankly, we now have the luxurious with our backers to not want to do that, and we’re not making an attempt to go public, or any of that stuff.
“We’re making an attempt to again that mixture of fantastic, suave video games which can be nonetheless kind of commercially viable and might attain thousands and thousands of gamers.”