When Will playdead's next game release?
One of the most reclusive gaming studios in the industry is playdead. Even after co founder Dino Patti left along with lead gameplay designer Jeppe Carlsen shortly after the release of Inside, remaining members of playdead including founder Arnt Jensen have said next to nothing.
Looking at what we know, the studio has been working on a third game for quite some time, the studio has gradually increased in size over the years from a handful of people to now over 50. Game 3 is going to be the studio's first 3D attempt and will be a third person science fiction adventure set in a remote corner of the universe.
What we don’t know is when we might see Game 3 and maybe looking at the history of the studio we can get a better idea.
In 2004 playdead was founded with the concept of Limbo and two years later, in the fall of 2006, Arnt Jensen released an early gameplay trailer in an attempt to attract more developers to help complete his vision. In 2010, Limbo was released on Xbox 360 to critical acclaim and established playdead as a studio to keep an eye on.
In early June of 2014, at E3, playdead revealed their second game, Inside, with a teaser trailer. Over two years later, at the end of June 2016, Inside was released and truly cemented playdead as one of the best indie studios in the gaming industry, a label that has grown even greater with their absence.
The time from when Limbo truly started development to release was 2006 to 2010. The time that Inside likely started development was immediately after the release of Limbo in 2010 to release in 2016. Limbo was 4 years, Inside was 6 years and if we are going to use that formula, it would seem like 8 years would make sense, which would mean 2024
However, there was the whole pandemic right in the middle of development along with the departure of a bunch of, what appeared to be, essential team members. This would include co founder Dino Patti who left to co-found Jumpship and Jeppe Carlsen, lead gameplay designer on both Limbo and Inside who would leave to found Geometric Interactive with other playdead programmers. Obviously, you can replace the talent that left but that does take some time to find the right people. All of these departures along with the pandemic have likely affected development of Game 3.
If we are to take a look at the precedent from playdeads relatively small development history, it would unfortunately seem like 2024 would the earliest we get any type of reveal or release. The silver lining is that since the release of Inside in 2016, the gaming industry has mostly shortened their reveal to release window and even shadow drops have become much more common practice.