It can be surprising to think that one of the best rhythm-action games for VR headsets, Pistol Whip has been around for over four years. Even more surprising is that developer Cloudhead Games hasn’t released another game since. Diligently working on continual updates and new content. So what else has the Pistol Whip studio been up to? As it turns out, two new games are in development.
As first reported by Road to VR, over the past few years Cloudhead Games has formed two separate internal teams. “This opened up the door to Cloudhead Labs, an incubator for internal pitches, prototypes, and the evaluation of new hardware,” Cloudhead told the site. “We’re excited to announce that the last few years of prototyping in Labs has led the way to two new titles for our studio. The teams are now several months into production and will be sharing more details in the near future!”
This is great news from the veteran VR studio. Originally founded in 2013, the studio has always been innovative in its approach to VR. You may remember – or have even played its first title, The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed (2016). Or quite possibly its sequel Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone (2017), both very good puzzle adventure games for their time.
The future of the Pistol Whip studio
Currently, we don’t know what kind of games the teams at Cloudhead are working on, but we do know they won’t involve fitness! Because Cloudhead Games’ founder and CEO Denny Unger responded to a query X (formerly Twitter), stating “Not fitness, no :)”
Unger also happened to mention the reasoning behind the two-game approach, whereas most studios focus resources on one. “Depends on how you view the market, timing, which areas you want to attack, what your goals are etc,” he explains. “We’ve been working hard for the last few years to establish a foundation for two teams, “two things always in production”. Having everything in one basket is rarely a sound strategy. You have to plan for failure as much as you plan for success. Games is hard.”
He goes onto add that: “These are two completely independent teams, with some shared resources/systems, etc. It probably isn’t the sacrifice you think it is but its difficult to get into the weeds there without understanding what it is we’re working on.”
We’ll have to be patient when it comes to finding out more. As the games are only ‘several months into production’ actual details may arrive towards the end of the year, or possibly early 2025.
Are you looking forward to what Cloudhead Games has in store? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.