We continue to wrap up 2025 with game developers. Up next is an interview with Slava Gris from RedblackSpade, the creator of Reflection of Mine, Catmaze, and Fearmonium.
What was 2025 like for your team? What were you able to accomplish, what are you proud of, and what didn't you manage to achieve?
Slava Gris, RedblackSpade: I'll start by saying that I don't have a team: I work alone. This year, I managed to do exactly what I intended—to continue working solo while announcing my new project, Fevercide. I didn't plan to finish it by 2025, and indeed, I didn't finish it. So everything is going according to plan.
What conclusions have you drawn from 2025 as a development studio?
My main conclusion is that AI has been terribly overrated. For several years now, studios of various kinds have been deeply integrating AI into the development process, yet the results haven't changed anything significantly: game development hasn't become cheaper (for some reason); the quality of popular projects hasn't improved, nor have they started releasing much more frequently. Players regularly express open hostility towards AI in games. Developers with a good head on their shoulders are very cautious about this: they either choose not to use AI at all or try to disguise it as much as possible, which only slows down the development process.
However, I'm talking about the PC game niche here. Maybe things are different in the curious world of mobile and browser games, but I'm not particularly interested in knowing the details.
My conclusion is that, considering the extensive research conducted this year on AI's negative impact on critical thinking, creativity, and cognitive skills—AI is an outdated and quite dangerous thing for the brain, and it's definitely better not to use it.
Have the practices of interacting with publishers/investors changed? Has it become easier or harder to work with them?
Slava: The practice hasn't changed at all—I still don't like publishers. No one contacted me during the announcement, but once the game appeared on IGN, I received several offers from publishers. I didn't even read the offers: it's immediately clear that publishers are still clinging to relatively well-promoted projects to spend as little as possible on marketing since the developer has already done a significant part of the work. As before, to find a "cool" publisher, you need to independently gather a few tens of thousands of "wishlists," and only then will publishers want to "latch onto" the game. However, I always wonder: if I've already done the main work of the publisher, why do I need them at the stage when I can statistically see that the game will pay off anyway?
What was the year like for the niche/genre you work in?
Slava: I work in the Metroidvania genre. This year it was shaken by the appearance of Silksong. The release of this game crashed both Steam and the eShop. By the time of Silksong's release, 4 million people had added it to their wishlists. This is interesting from the perspective that the previous part (Hollow Knight) sold about 10 million copies on Steam. The overall statistics show that 30% of players never launch a purchased game, and only 10% complete it to the end. So: only about a million players got everything the previous project could offer, but many more people showed interest in the sequel.
The moral of the story is: don't be afraid of "oversaturation" in any niche as long as people remain eager to make purchases and demand more and more, even before fully enjoying the games already released.
What trends do you expect to strengthen or emerge in your niche/genre in 2026?
Slava: I hope games will become shorter. More and more projects (including in the Metroidvania genre) are becoming absurdly large and taking 30, 50, 100 hours. Considering that 90% of players don't complete games, all the final chapters are made for a handful of players and for those who will retell them on YouTube. In the single-player game industry, this, in my opinion, is a big problem: we create a ton of content that almost nobody sees. I am glad that the game Constance did relatively well this year (with 15,000 sales on the first day, which is quite a respectable figure for a niche 2D Metroidvania), and judging by the reviews, no one complains about its length. It is completed in six hours. And that's wonderful.
What are your plans for the coming year?
Slava: I spent all of 2025 in my room working on Fevercide. I sincerely hope that 2026 will be the same. There's nothing more enjoyable than creating your own world.