Having recently parted ways with former owners Xbox as part of the console maker’s mass cuts, South of Midnight and We Happy Few developers Compulsion Games have announced they’re seeking opportunities to collaborate with other studios. Likely to help them keep the lights on until they’ve got a new game of their own well on its way, Compulsion look to have turned their focus towards landing a co-development or support gig on someone else’s project.

“With Compulsion Games returning to its roots as an independent developer, we are expanding opportunities to collaborate with studios across the games and entertainment industry,” the studio wrote on LinkedIn. Signalling they’re open to letting partners “leverage the talent and creativity of the award-winning team behind South of Midnight”, Compulsion closed by saying that they’re “excited to support the development of memorable experiences that engage and entertain players around the world”.

It’s a move that makes perfect sense. Unlike fellow Xbox departees Undead Labs and Ninja Theory, neither Compulsion or Psychonauts developers Double Fine fell straight into the laps of new owners. That means they’re likely in the position of needing to ensure they’ve got short-term funding in place beyond any off-ramp money Microsoft might have provided, especially since both had released games relatively recently before they were cut loose.

So, landing whatever co-development or support work might be out there to help keep their teams employed while whichever games follow South of Midnight and Kiln are spun up is a shrewd move, if not one of the few options out there given the situation.

Given Compulsion’s strength in the storytelling department, it’d make sense in my eyes for any co-development they do to be on games with strong narrative focuses or which are after a distinctive art style.

We’ll see which projects they land on. In the meantime, best of luck to Compulsion as they chart their newly independent course.