Half-Life 2 art director Viktor Antonov and Wargaming veterans form new studio Eschatology Entertainment
A group of former Wargaming developers, together with renowned video game art director Viktor Antonov, have formed the new studio Eschatology Entertainment. They have now raised $4 million to create their debut AAA game.
On November 17, Eschatology announced the closing of a seed round co-led by GEM Capital and The Games Fund. Each firm invested $2 million in the new studio.
Who is the team behind Eschatology Entertainment?
Based in Cyprus, Eschatology Entertainment is a fully-remote studio with 40 employees distributed across eight countries. Its founding team consists of:
- CEO and creative director Fuad Kuliev;
- Visual director Viktor Antonov;
- CTO Dmytro Kostiukevych;
- COO Boris Nikolaev.
Kuliev, Kostiukevych, and Nikolaev previously worked at Wargaming. They were involved in the company’s R&D work and other operations.
In 2016, Kuliev founded indie studio Lesser Evil Games, where he together with several other Wargaming veterans worked on narrative-driven RPG The Executioner. Eventually, they joined forces with Viktor Antonov to start Eschatology Entertainment.
Antonov is a prominent artist and visual designer with decades of experience in the games industry. Best known for his work on Half-Life 2 and Dishonored, he also served as a visual consultant for ZeniMax games like Doom (2016), Fallout 4, and Prey.
Other team members of Eschatology Entertainment include CPO Alexey Gerasimovich, who was in charge of the Master of Orion launch at Wargaming, and producer Evgeniy Tarakanov, who also worked at Wargaming as an operational director.
What is known about Eschatology’s debut game?
This will be an AAA narrative-driven first-person shooter for PC and consoles. Eschatology said the game will be “set in the unique living game world that would push the industry boundaries,” adding that it wants to “disrupt hardcore games.”
According to the official website, the project “tells the story of a gunslinger that journeys through a world enveloped in hellfire and on the verge of destruction, in which he tries to understand who he is and how he got there.”
The studio is yet to disclose the title and other details of its debut game, with Antov promising to share more information soon.
