We Happy Few Studio Looking Forward To Applying Lessons To New Universe

We Happy Few was an experiment for developer Compulsion Games, and not an entirely successful one. The studio is open-eyed about its weaknesses, though, and talking openly about how it could apply the lessons learned to future projects.

"Things feel like they're gonna get a lot easier for us to succeed," Compulsion founder Guillame Provost told US Gamer. "If we don't make something much better than the last game, then something is uber-wrong with my direction for the studio."

He said part of that also involves learning from colleagues at other studios and exploring best practices across developers.

"Our animation director, our technical director, our game designers are all kind of starting to plug into all the game directors and their peers at all the other studios," he said. "We're not going to all start making games that look like each other as a result, but we're going to be able to leverage each other's knowledge and experiences better."

Finally, he suggested the studio thinking about what to do next, saying "there's a hunger in the studio to apply all the knowledge that we've acquired to a new universe."

We Happy Few released its final piece of episodic story last month, prompting the studio to look back with a making-of documentary on the way. The initial reviews were poor, including GameSpot's own 4/10 review.

"There's a clear lack of direction that We Happy Few is never able to shake, which wastes its intriguing setting," Alessandro Barbosa wrote. "It does manage to weave each of its three stories cohesively into a larger tale, but it's also one that's never critical enough to earn the right to repeat "happiness is a choice" any chance it can. There are just too many hurdles to overcome to enjoy We Happy Few, and not enough Joy in the world to cast them aside."