Evil Empire Reconsiders Early Access After Hades Impact

Evil Empire is reconsidering early access for its future games after Hades raised expectations for content and quality in independent games. The studio also does not use AI-assisted coding or generative AI assets in production, according to CEO Thomas Pfeiffer and Head of Business Ben Laulan.

Evil Empire began as a separate studio formed from Motion Twin, the developer of Dead Cells. Its team grew from four founders to 15 full-time employees working on Dead Cells, then expanded to about 50 permanent contractors for larger projects.

The studio has worked with Ubisoft on The Rogue Prince of Persia and with Konami on Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, which was released in October 2026. Evil Empire is working on multiple games at different stages, although it has not announced its next projects.

The company also operates a live-operations business that supports other developers. Its work includes support for Brotato, an arena-shooter roguelike from Blobfish Games.

Evil Empire created the Triple-i Initiative, an indie game showcase that began in 2024. Its fourth presentation took place in October 2026, following an event in April.

The April presentation generated about three million Steam wishlists across participating games within a week, according to Laulan. That amounted to an average of roughly 65,000 wishlists per game, with several titles gaining more than 100,000.

The October presentation featured Croteam’s The Talos Principle 3, a crossover involving Subnautica 2 and Dave the Diver, and Aftergods from Norsfell, the developer of Tribes of Midgard. Machinarium 2 from Amanita Design was among the strongest performers, Laulan said.

Evil Empire created Triple-i because the number of games released on Steam each week has made it harder for independent developers to reach players. Laulan advised developers to assess whether a showcase attracts people interested in their type of game rather than focus on total views.

“You’re not trying to reach a million views,” Laulan said. “You want to make sure to communicate to players that will be there to buy your game.”

He was not concerned about Valve’s plans to replace some curated Steam discounts with algorithmic recommendations. He hopes the system will help players discover games outside their usual preferences. The October presentation included sales on three major consoles, while Steam’s event-based featuring had already been used for the April event.

Dead Cells and The Rogue Prince of Persia used early access, while Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse launched without it. Laulan described early access as a way to reach players early and build games with their feedback, but said the studio has not decided whether to use it for future projects.

“The need for content and quality is off the charts now — thank you, Hades,” Laulan said.

Pfeiffer said Evil Empire still wants to connect with players early, but may seek alternatives to early access. Both executives recalled using forums to collect feedback when the team made web games.

Pfeiffer said AI could remove the shared effort involved in creating a game and reaching agreement within a team. “If AI makes the effort disappear — if we don’t have the effort of creating alignment, creating pleasure, having difficulties and troubles to create that team effort — I’m not sure I’m going to be happy with creating games any more,” he said.

Laulan added that the studio would continue making games “the old way” for now. Pfeiffer said working with a machine would change the meaning of a collaborative creative process, even if the resulting product were technically stronger.