Focus Home Interactive, a New Giant

By now most of you have undoubtedly heard of Focus Home Interactive. For those that haven’t they have created some fantastic games such as the recently released Battlefleet Gothic: Armada and are currently working on a large selection of games of various genres, titles and settings; they also created the timeless classic Styx: Master of Shadows. But what is this article about? Well in short, I believe that Focus Home Interactive are on the fast track to becoming one of the biggest publishers currently on the scene. I predict that in the next few years they will be a household name, far ahead of Ubisoft and EA. Though these current giants are admittedly stumbling over their own ego, and if they aren’t careful they may find that their PC market will plunge into nothingness, but Battlefield 1 gives me hope!

With large companies no longer taking risks or even at times cutting corners in the production of their games, it's no wonder that a few small companies have started to rise up and attempt to steal the spotlight. None have attempted to do so as effectively as Focus Home Interactive. Focus Home Interactive was founded in 1996, making it as old as myself! Clearly at the start the small French company floundered somewhat, unsure of how to make heads or tails of the market but over time their titles improved. Their published titles seemed to become more and more prominent on the market, they made themselves their own small little niche.

Now? The small French company is arguably one of the most successful publishers around today. Unlike most large companies, whom seem to have started taking less and less risks but were rather daring in their youth, Focus Home Interactive were rather content on republishing remakes and upgrades of their current titles. Now that they are wise with their age they have started to take risks. As it stands they have, on multiple times, managed to satisfy one of the hardest audiences around: The Gameworkshopian PC Gamer. Warhammer gamers are notoriously hard to impress with Games Workshop titles, I should know as I am one myself. The titles published by Focus Home Interactive seem to meet the demands of that mentioned audience. With such successes as Mordheim: City of the Damned and Bloodbowl, it would be hard to argue otherwise.

But what am I really excited about? Their more risky titles, things that haven’t really been attempted before and are in their own custom settings with custom lore, characters and unique backgrounds. One such example being the new and upcoming Technomancer, whilst I haven’t got my hands on a copy just yet, I know it will only be a matter of time before I dip my fingers into my wallet and start launching pound coins at my computer screen. Spacehulk: Deathwing is definitely the most attractive title for me at the moment. To don a set of terminator armour and to charge forward into the awaiting horde of tyranids, shouting praise to the God-Emperor all the while as I unleash my holy retribution. Whereas Vampyr satisfies my lust for blood and story, and will undoubtedly captivate me sometime during 2017.

I predict that within the next few years, Focus Home Interactive will be a household name and one that will command a large army of fans and loyal customers. Ubisoft and EA need to watch their backs, as I somehow doubt that Focus Home Interactive will grab its customers by the balls and force them to use their own launcher or market place, they are more than content to stay on the steam store. I personally believe that in the near future we can expect to see a great deal of new and different titles from this company, perhaps a few new warhammer titles and almost definitely another great strategy game or two from them!