ProbablyMonsters is betting on an Xbox 360-esque bonanza of single-player AA kookiness

Remember the Xbox 360 era? Back in the 2000s, publishers tended to have heaving release slates, mixing oddball ideas with more established formats. But as development budgets have spiralled in the decades since, with games taking longer and longer to produce, the big publishers’ release slates have shrunk dramatically. Ubisoft, for example, published just four games in 2025. In 2000, it published more than 60.

ProbablyMonsters’ recent approach, with four internally developed titles revealed over the past few months and the promise of more to come, is somewhat reminiscent of that Xbox 360-era tactic of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks – although we doubt they themselves would describe it in those terms.

In fact, we know they don’t. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, ProbablyMonsters’ new chief marketing officer David Reid dismisses the idea that the firm is taking a scattergun approach with its releases, instead saying that they are intentionally focused on the AA space. “We’re building a portfolio, we’re building a brand, and we want to show gamers that if you see the ProbablyMonsters logo on a game, it’ll be something a little different.”

When ProbablyMonsters was founded by former Bungie chief Harold Ryan in 2016, the idea was to transform AAA development. But last year, after releasing exactly zero games in nearly a decade, and after spinning off Firewalk Studios into Sony’s hands only for it to be shuttered following the disastrous launch of Concord, ProbablyMonsters announced an abrupt pivot into AA development. “The market evolved – and we had to step back and figure out how to evolve,” Ryan told GamesIndustry.biz.

At that time, the firm revealed Storm Lancers and Ire: A Prologue, both of which launched at the end of 2025. Since then, ProbablyMonsters has revealed two new titles, Crimson Moon and Nekome: Nazi Hunter, the latter of which is being directed by former Rockstar Games VP of product development Jeronimo Barrera. Both are unashamedly gory: Nekome brings to mind Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds with its unflinching portrayal of violence, while Crimson Moon somewhat resembles a bloodier version of Darksiders.

It feels like we’re in pulp fiction, B-movie territory, all visceral thrills rather than Hollywood sheen. But that’s all part of the plan. Reid says that focusing on the AA space allows developers to “realise ambitions of intellectual property and game mechanics that they probably couldn’t do in other places.”

It’s refreshing to see a big company target AA weirdness. Most of the big firms have increasingly focused on surefire sequels and established IP as the stakes have got higher down the years. But Reid says ProbablyMonsters has “an aspiration to build a culture where great developers can do great things.”

Yet there’s a reason why companies like Ubisoft have left the AA space behind. The largest firms nowadays prefer to chase the biggest of big titles in order to make potentially huge returns, preferably a decade-long live-service hit, while the smaller publishers are increasingly focused on funding a wide range of smaller titles with budgets of less than a million dollars, thus spreading the risk while hoping for a Balatro-sized hit.

The middle ground, by contrast, is seen as a gamble. Although the sums invested are nowhere near those of AAA, they’re hardly negligible either, meaning there’s more pressure for games to make a return. Meanwhile, the mega profits of a successful live-service behemoth remain out of reach.

Reid acknowledges that the budgets for ProbablyMonsters’ titles are higher than what he would call an “indie budget,” but he thinks there’s room to control the risk, particularly in terms of the marketing spend.

“If you are feeling like you’ve got something that’s working with the community, the gamers, the press and with the platforms and partners and things, you can telescope that spend out as much or as little as is appropriate,” he says.

“It’s unlikely when you go down this path that you’re expecting you’re going to make $500 million on game X, but you’re probably looking at something where you’re like, ‘Eh, this is going to be profitable.’ And if we’re running into trouble, we’ll reduce the paid spend. And if we’re looking great, we’re just going to step on the gas and go with it.”

If a game is a hit, he says, it’s likely the marketing spend could end up being bigger than the development budget. But throwing everything at every title isn’t a winning strategy. “Just sort of carpet bombing the universe about game X by and large is a failing proposition in my discipline.”

The advantage of AA, Reid says, is that ProbablyMonsters can have “a little more flexibility on the kinds of projects that we can take on.” And he thinks the figures add up when it comes to the company’s new approach. “As I went through my interview process not that long ago, I was very careful about looking at the balance sheet, understanding what the scope of the team was, how much capital we had. And I feel very good about where we’re at.”

Yet there are signs that ProbablyMonsters’ new AA strategy hasn’t paid off so far. Storm Lancers’ all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam is just 29 according to SteamDB, and Video Game Insights estimates it has sold only 831 units on Steam (the game also came out on the Epic Games Store and Nintendo Switch, for which figures are unavailable). Similarly, Ire: A Prologue hit a player peak of 22, with VGI putting sales at just 415 units on Steam (again, the game also came out on the Epic Games Store, for which figures are not available).

Reid acknowledges that it could have gone better. “Anytime you’re getting started as a new publisher and shipping your first games, a lot of your success criteria needs to be around were we able to ship? Did we have an audience? Did we come up with a concept that resonated with people? To make a great successful publisher, you need to have a portfolio of games that are critically acclaimed and commercially successful, right? One or the other isn’t enough if you’re really building this thing forward. I think Storm Lancers ticked the beginning boxes of those things, but we do have higher ambitions for commercial success and plans to do that.

“I think part of what I saw with Storm Lancers as an outsider who never imagined that I might be coming to the company at some point in the future was something that creatively appealed to me and looked really solid. Then, as a marketer and a publishing executive, I take a look at some of those results and I’m like, I know there are ways to do this better.

“As the company was going through its pivot, I think one of the things Harold and the executive team started to realise was, if we’re going to do this, we need to get serious about this publishing side of things and level up our capabilities there in the same way that we’re changing how we think about development. We need to change our thoughts about how we do publishing.”

Hence why Reid was brought on board in March alongside Jonathan Lander as chief publishing officer and Mark Subotnick as chief product officer – all experienced hands that can steady ProbablyMonsters’ newly launched publishing ship. Reid’s career stretches back two decades, during which he has taken on senior roles at Behaviour Interactive, CCP Games, Trion Worlds, and Xbox Platform Marketing.

“What I have seen in AI is that consumers are not looking for AI generated content”

One recent job sticks out on his CV: advisor to the 2D game creation platform Makko AI. Does that mean Reid would consider himself something of an AI enthusiast? “I would not characterize myself as an AI enthusiast,” he says. “I’m still an advisor with the company, but I’m obviously not in a full-time role of any kind with them now. I think there’s something really interesting there in that development platform that’s being built, and I’m keeping an eye on it. And there could very well be a lot of things that Makko could do with publishers, but I’ve made a very conscious decision to get back into where we are now with ProbablyMonsters and shipping games, new IP, that’s what’s exciting.”

He’s quick to reassure that there’s no generative AI in ProbablyMonsters’ games. “What I have seen in AI is that consumers are not looking for AI generated content, right? They’re not looking for games written by machines.”

In terms of ProbablyMonsters’ new games, we suggest there’s something of an old-school, back-to-basics Xbox 360 flavour to Crimson Moon in particular, which puts Reid right at home. “Well, when you talk about the Xbox 360 era, you’re going to tickle my fancy, because that was where I really worked with all of these guys in the beginning,” he says.

He thinks it’s an era it’s worth going back to. “There is something I think that a lot of us… or at least I as a gamer, feel like I’ve been missing. I played games in that era and continue to do so for a bit of discovery and escapism and a journey and taking me somewhere different than what I see every day. The longer you play in a live service game, the less of that you get.

“Tell me a story about another world that I can’t get to – these are the kinds of things I think you’re going to see us doing with Nekome, with Crimson Moon and trying to do more of in our portfolio going forward … What we’re doing now is very focused on those through lines of discovery, new worlds, new IP, and an interesting, tight, focused single-player experience.”

“We’re going to continue moving down this path”

But surely the lack of commercial success for ProbablyMonsters’ inaugural titles must provide some pause for thought – and must be piling on the pressure for the next two titles to succeed. Are we now looking at make or break time for the firm?

“I don’t think we’re looking down that barrel of a gun, so to speak,” says Reid. “I think we’re in pretty good shape right now, all things considered for the company, the change it’s been through, the courage that it took to make that pivot and keep things going. I think we’re in a very strong position and a very resilient group for it.”

And he’s convinced that the future remains rosy for the kind of premium single-player titles ProbablyMonsters has committed to. “We’re going to continue moving down this path. There are other games in the portfolio that we intend to share with you and everybody else in the months ahead … There’s a good portfolio of things being developed right now that I’m not able to talk about yet, but it’s an exciting prospect looking forward.”