New studio Blue Scarab is making a ‘cozy true-crime’ MMORPG

Studio founded by former Helldivers 2, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield devs

Marco Wutz | Jul 17, 2024

Blue Scarab Entertainment

Sweden’s thriving games industry has added yet another newly-founded studio to its portfolio: Blue Scarab Entertainment is headquartered in Stockholm and will be using Unreal Engine 5 to develop “a story-driven MMORPG with a unique blend of cozy escapism, true-crime, and horseback riding” set in an open world.

Well, you certainly can’t say that this mix doesn’t sound original – unless it’s just a fancy way of describing a cowboy game.

Blue Scarab is led by Colin Cragg as CEO and Enno Rehling as CTO with former developers of World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Helldivers 2, Battlefield, and Star Stable Online being among the more than 20 team members currently employed by the company in Stockholm as well as remotely.

Craig Morrison, who has experience as a creative at DICE, Blizzard, and Funcom, serves as studio director. Blue Scarab’s principal game designer is Guillaume Lhoyer, who was a leading system designer on co-op hits such as Helldivers 2 and Vermintide 2: Chaos Wastes. Another Arrowhead veteran is leading the community and marketing efforts with Ashley Nicollette.

Blue Scarab is currently hiring additional developers. / Blue Scarab Entertainment

“As the games industry has expanded, we have welcomed many new audiences. We believe there is space for fusing and evolving previous gaming and media experiences into something new and fresh for this expanded community,” Morrison commented in a statement to the press.

“Innovation through iteration can be very powerful,” he continued. “Our goal is to bring all the expertise that our team has accumulated to forge new experiences for a wider audience than ever before. We want to try to defy genre expectations, while still leveraging all the skills and experience of the team we have assembled.”

Blue Scarab Entertainment has secured $7 million USD in funding with NetEase and Behold Ventures being the principal backers. “With the backing of NetEase Games we're empowered to bring our vision to life. We're grateful for their commitment to creative freedom, supporting expertise, and resources as we set off on this adventure,” explained CEO Colin Cragg.

Published Jul 17, 2024

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg