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The CEO and co-founder of Sunless Sea creator Failbetter Games is leaving the company.
Alexis Kennedy set up the studio in 2009, working on narrative-driven browser title Fallen London before expanding the Lovecraftian universe with critically acclaimed PC game Sunless Sea in 2015. Fallen London was ported to mobile earlier this year.
“Seven years later, we’ve shipped nine projects and we provide full-time work for sixteen people making dark, distinctive, untidy games,” Kennedy wrote in a farewell post on the Failbetter blog.
“We’ve built something that’s changed the world, ever so slightly. But it’s been seven years in one place, and I’m too busy running the company to do enough of the creative work I love. So, rather to my own surprise, once I’ve finished off one last project, I’m leaving.”
Kennedy’s last project is likely to be the upcoming Zubmariner expansion for Sunless Sea, although he did express his desire to finish his popular ‘Seeking’ storyline for Fallen London before departing.
“I’ll be walking the earth like Jules in Pulp Fiction walking the earth like Caine in Kung Fu,” Kennedy joked about his future plans. “Oh all right I mean I’ll hang out my shingle as a freelancer.
“I have the entrepreneur’s bug and I’ll probably found another studio eventually, but I want to learn as much as I can from as many different kinds of project as I can, first.”
