Gardens Interactive has secured $35 million from a slate of investors that includes Yamauchi No.10, the investment company established by the founding family of Nintendo. Gardens remains the first and only video game startup Yamauchi has backed.
The studio is currently developing what it describes as a "role playing strandbox" (seemingly codenamed Gardens) that facilitates emergent storytelling between players, who will purportedly be able to leave a lasting impression on the world.
"Gardens is a game about the stories that emerge when players cross paths and experience chance encounters, set in a shapeshifting world full of myth, mystery and magic. And it doesn't fit the labels people usually reach for, so we half-jokingly threw one out and it stuck," said studio-co-founder and creative director Chris Bell, whose previous credits include Journey and Sky: Children of the Light.
"A strandbox is a sandbox where what you do stays behind for whoever passes through next, where the consequences of your actions can be felt by those you may never meet, and where players can deepen their bonds in a multitude of ways."
The pitch has captivated a wide variety of investors. Lightspeed Partners led the latest financing round with support from Zenith Capital, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Accel, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Bayshore, and others.
Bell said the investment will provide the runway needed to ship without compromise. "This funding gives us the room to ship a game of this scale properly, and to keep it alive and evolving for years to come," he added.
"Our ambition is to grow Gardens into the global leader of prestige social entertainment, and we are deeply grateful for our partners—those who have been with us from the beginning, and those who are new to our adventure party—for believing in our vision and for recognizing social roleplay and player-driven worldbuilding as a massive and majorly underserved category."
According to studio co-founder and CTO Lexie Dostal, Gardens will purportedly allow players to explore a "virtually limitless world" thanks to a proprietary world engine and matchmaker called 'Petri.'
Dostal said Petri allows the development team to lean on procedural systems while still introducing hand-authored content wherever it's fundamental to the experience. "The result is a world unlike any other, one that shapeshifts endlessly–impacted by divine influence, dynamic events and communal efforts," added Dostal.
Chris is an award-winning reporter with over a decade of experience covering the video game industry. He was formerly news editor at Game Developer and is currently the founder and editor of this resplendent website.
