Escape From Tarkov dev wants to bet on 'risky' games with its new publishing

Diego Argüello,Contributing Editor, News,GameDeveloper.com

September 22, 2026

schedule2 Min ReadImage via Battlestate Games Publishing

Battlestate Games Publishing, the recently announced publishing arm by Escape from Tarkov developer Battlestate Games, is seeking to provide support to "hardcore" and "risky" projects.

After announcing its new publishing venture at the beginning of September, Battlestate Games spoke to PCGamesN to provide more context about its plans, which are bolstered by a desire to "help hardcore FPS and niche games" like Escape from Tarkov, the company's COO Nikita Buyanov says.

"We thought: 'why not? We'll give it a shot.' It's not like we can do it in one single step—like just start publishing projects and all of that. We will need a lot of time, and it will be a new experience for us, too," Buyanov tells the publication.

The COO adds that the company isn't treating the arm as a "big publishing business," but rather as a helping hand for small, indie, and niche projects, which he generalizes as hardcore games.

"We will allow them to use our audience, and our legacy even, to break through—to have something new, and to [generate] some kind of interest in the hardcore community. We don't treat it as a big, upscaled marketing and all of that. It's more or less an experiment for us, and for the whole industry to make a centralized platform for these kinds of games."

This year alone, the developers behind the likes of Journey and Peak have launched publishing labels, using their established commercial successes to bolster other developers and pay it forward, either by providing funds or by acting as full-service publishers.

Buyanov says the publishing arm has already received more than 100 pitches. There's "maybe five to ten games which are already suitable" for what the studio is looking for. Yet, it still has to decide on what it needs to provide support, and how exactly to start doing so.

The COO is bullish on the idea that Battlestate Games isn't targeting a financial approach to publishing, and rather, it just wants to see and test "risky" games.

"Some risky ideas with risky implementation—some prototypes even—are going to have something in there, like the scent of greatness; something special in there that can be unfolded into something new. So this is our approach: really risky, interesting ideas above potential profits and all that," he says.

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About the Author

Diego Argüello

Contributing Editor, News, GameDeveloper.com

Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist and critic from Argentina. Video games helped him to learn English, so now he covers them for places like The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, and more. He also runs Into the Spine, a site dedicated to fostering and supporting new writers, and co-hosted Turnabout Breakdown, a podcast about the Ace Attorney series. He’s most likely playing a rhythm game as you read this.

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