Failbetter Games


Failbetter Games is a British video game developer and interactive fiction studio based in London.

History

Founded in 2009 by Alexis Kennedy and Paul Arendt, Failbetter is chiefly known for its Fallen London Victorian Gothic franchise, which has garnered a cult following. Failbetter was also commissioned by BioWare to build a browser-game prologue for , and by UK publisher Harvill Secker to create a puzzle game to accompany The Night Circus. The studio has consistently won acclaim for the quality of its writing, world-building and storytelling.
In 2016, Alexis Kennedy left Failbetter, citing a desire to work with a variety of other studios and work on his own smaller, more experimental projects.
In February 2017, Failbetter ran a successful Kickstarter for a sequel to Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, raising almost half a million dollars. However, December that same year Failbetter unexpectedly laid off four members of staff, citing the under-performance of the Sunless Sea iPad port, and poor sales of their Sunless Skies in early access. Failbetter was subsequently the target of an extensive but inconclusive investigative report by Eurogamer, which cited Kennedy and other unnamed staff in claiming poor management and a 'toxic' culture had developed since Kennedy's departure.

Games developed

YearTitlePlatform
2009Fallen LondonAndroid, Browser, iOS
2012Tales of Fallen London: The Silver TreeBrowser
2014Browser
2015Sunless SeaiOS, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, OS X, PlayStation 4
2019Sunless SkiesLinux, macOS, Microsoft Windows