The Hamburg-based studio celebrates their tenth anniversary creating popular space shooters
Today, ROCKFISH Games celebrates 10 years of development and self-publishing popular top-tier space shooters, standing as a poster child for successful independent studios in Germany’s video game industry. Since founding in 2014, the studio has launched multiple releases in its EVERSPACE series on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo, with over two million copies sold across all platforms.
Michael Schade and Christian Lohr founded ROCKFISH Games shortly after their previous venture had been acquired. A small team of developers stuck by the two began working on what would become the studio’s core franchise. Kickstarter served as both a marketing and crowdfunding tool for EVERSPACE, putting the game in front of space game fans around the world.
“EVERSPACE hit at just the right time. Rogue-likes were on the upswing in popularity, and our space shooter twist clicked with fans,” said ROCKFISH Games CEO and Co-Founder Michael Schade. “What makes ROCKFISH Games is our team. We could not have done this without the talented developers who followed Christian and me from our previous venture, most of whom are still with us today, as well as the team members who have joined us over the years since we opened our studio’s doors.”
Following the success of EVERSPACE, ROCKFISH Games pivoted from the first game’s roguelike experience to a more open-world adventure, a change warmly received by space game fans around the world. The studio’s launch of EVERSPACE 2 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S was both a commercial and critical indie success with more than 400,000 copies sold across all platforms alongside healthy Metacritic, OpenCritic, and user reviews. At its current course, EVERSPACE 2 is on track to triple its predecessor in sales and quadruple the revenue.
“Our journey through Early Access with EVERSPACE 2 these last few years has been an exciting one. Pivoting from our rogue-like roots to an open-world action RPG looter shooter was a risk we were willing to take, as this game is so much closer to what we’d originally envisioned for our EVERSPACE series,” said Schade. “I’m glad to see that players around the world were so on board with this shift, and it certainly resonated with the media as well. We still have so many fresh ideas, so many amazing stories left to tell, and fantastic adventures lined up for space fans around the globe.”
ROCKFISH Games has added two notable team members to a growing roster of industry veterans. Veteran sci-fi storyteller Chris L’Etoile now joined the EVERSPACE series’ narrative design, bringing a wealth of experience from prior roles working on Mass Effect 1 & 2, The Outer Worlds, Aliens: Fireteam Elite, and other storied franchises. Videogame veteran Bleick Bleicken has also joined the team as its new Art Director, bringing creative vision and over two decades of industry experience to the studio.
The story of the EVERSPACE series is far from over. ROCKFISH is busy working on a major free update titled Incursions, which will be released Spring 2024. Incursions will bring a host of new weapons and equipment, fresh features, and the game’s migration to Unreal Engine 5. With a sizable expansion also in the works, fans of the EVERSPACE series have much premium content to look forward to.With exciting projects in the works and planned for the coming years, ROCKFISH Games is expanding their team to include more artists, designers, and programmers. Multiple open roles are available on the ROCKFISH Games Jobs page.
