In the interview, Witchfire Creative Director Adrian Chmielarz discusses why the era of cumbersome gaming giants is ending and how small, agile top teams are shaping a new independence for the future of gaming.
In a time when the big giants of the gaming industry are faltering, small, agile teams are proving that vision and quality weigh heavier than billion-dollar budgets. One of these teams is The Astronauts. Their new single-player shooter Witchfire is currently enjoying success in Early Access. MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski spoke with Creative Director Adrian Chmielarz about the current state of the gaming industry.
What to expect in the interview:
- The crisis of the titans: Why Adrian Chmielarz believes the next five years will be “very painful” for AAA studios and why “big” is often a hindrance to innovation today.
- Witchfire’s recipe for success: How a team of just 27 people generated 1.6 million wishlist entries.
- Strict AI ban: A look behind the scenes of development – why “not a single pixel of AI” is allowed in Witchfire, even if that prolongs work by weeks.
- The end of publisher power: Why developers today, according to Chmielarz, no longer need “suit-wearers” to celebrate world successes, and why the marketing of the future takes place on Reddit and YouTube.
- Shooter fatigue as a myth: Why the market for high-quality single-player shooters is actually empty.
- A-players instead of management ballast: A plea for radical talent gatekeeping and a work culture where the ego is dismantled.
Over 500,000 units sold in Early Access
MeinMMO: I would like to start with the numbers of Witchfire in Early Access. They are already impressive: You have sold 500,000 units and generated 1.6 million wishlist entries – which is enormous. You accomplished all this with a small team of about 27 people. Did you at The Astronauts prepare for this level of excitement given the volatile situation in the industry, or was the success a surprise?
Adrian Chmielarz: Well, we obviously hoped for it – after all, it’s our livelihood. We realized that people liked Painkiller and Bulletstorm. The latter was commercially not a success by 2011 standards, but today that would be a completely different story. It was not a disaster, just not the super hit that Electronic Arts wished for. Nevertheless, we were hopeful that people would respond to our announcement.
However, a major risk was that our previous game, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, was an adventure – often referred to as a “walking simulator.” When the same people suddenly announce, “By the way, in the next game, you’ll be shooting heads off,” that’s a bold leap.
MeinMMO: You just said that Bulletstorm would be a success today? Do you think it would be more successful than back then?
Adrian Chmielarz: Maybe. But I primarily think that the numbers achieved by Bulletstorm back then were not satisfactory for EA – but they would be today.
I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I remember that we were more or less the first victims of a tectonic shift in gaming. Namely: “We no longer want to buy eight-hour-long single-player campaigns. We need more.”
Bulletstorm was the first game to be affected by that. Others followed.
We actually worked on Bulletstorm 2 already. It was in development. But EA decided: “We’re too big for that.”
They are interested in franchises that sell 10 or 20 million copies. So they cancelled it, and that was it for Bulletstorm – at least for now.
Publishers controlled the distribution – not anymore
MeinMMO: This “We’re too big for that” is an interesting point. We are currently seeing a “crisis of the giants” with layoffs at AAA studios, while small teams are celebrating successes. What is the downside of large structures compared to a team of 27 people?
Adrian Chmielarz: The quality of the team. Imagine a studio with 2,000 employees. It is extremely hard, almost impossible, to have 2,000 outstanding developers where each one is a perfect 10 out of 10. And with such a structure, you inevitably have more managers than ever before.
You have creative people who know how to make a good game. They try to do it, but they have to fight through all the bullshit from upper management that tells them: “We saw a YouTube video, that’s not cool with kids anymore, we have to do something else.”
You have a Creative Director, an Art Lead, and many other developers who want to create something great – but they just can’t. Why are creatives leaving big companies now and founding small studios that are successful? The reason is very simple: They couldn’t do it before.
This would have happened 30 years ago – if publishers hadn’t controlled the distribution. Today, through Steam and digital stores, you can be your own publisher successfully.
Of course, that’s not trivial. You need money and infrastructure.
MeinMMO: The marketing has also changed. Content creators and YouTube allow small studios to reach many people without huge budgets. Is that a crucial factor?
Adrian Chmielarz: Absolutely. In the past, publishers controlled the distribution chains and marketing – you bought ads in magazines. We don’t need that anymore today. We haven’t spent a cent on streamers or YouTubers so far.
That will probably change, as I see no problem in paying some of them. But at least in this phase, we can reach practically everyone. You just need a game that is interesting to them.
People are also suspicious of traditional advertising; they rely on word of mouth, Reddit, or channels like SkillUp. Make a good game, and you have access to this space.
An absolute ban on AI assets
MeinMMO: Another change that is currently taking place is generative AI: for cost reduction or speeding up processes. What can a team of 27 accomplish that AI cannot, to make a game like Witchfire unique?
Adrian Chmielarz: I think, at least today – by the end of 2025 – the rule is: If someone believes they can make a game with AI, they are so wrong that it’s not even funny.
Sometimes I want to generate an image internally to explain an idea. Something like: “Hey, I want this wheel in the game, and here’s an illustration.” And then I sit for an hour just to get the image somewhat right – just to show the others what I mean. That’s really not a problem AI can solve right now.
For Witchfire, there is a very simple rule at the moment: It is absolutely forbidden to use AI assets in the game. This sometimes gives us serious headaches.
For example, we wanted to incorporate portraits of witches into the game. With AI as a tool, our artist might have accomplished that in a week. Not to generate everything, but to use AI to remove elements or fill in backgrounds.
But I said: No. There must not be a single pixel of AI. So, he took almost a month to create everything manually. But when we write “No AI” in the game, I want that to be true.
Will that change? Probably yes. Right now there is a strong stigma. I can hardly imagine that we will use AI for generating art, but AI as a tool – that will be completely acceptable soon.
A great example is Broken Sword. A remaster was released where they used locally trained AI that was taught the visual style of the game, to upscale the material. The quality is incredible – something that would have taken an entire team a year.
We will definitely see more of that.
MeinMMO: In Where Winds Meet, there are a few AI NPCs that you can chat with freely. What do you think of such experiments?
Adrian Chmielarz: On paper, I hate it. I believe in author-driven content. For me, a book, a game, a movie is a connection to another person. I want to consume what that person offers me. I want to take it in, breathe it.
If I know that it’s just an AI branch that some generator came up with, it’s no longer immersive for me. Because I know there’s just a generator behind it.
But never say never. Because recently there’s this completely crazy trend on YouTube with remixes of old songs. For example, Careless Whisper by George Michael as a Soviet post-punk new wave song from the 80s.
These are completely absurd rearrangements. And I have to say: Some of them are just great.
Ego must not stand in the way
MeinMMO: Your team consists of many veterans. Does this experience help to implement innovations faster?
Adrian Chmielarz: That has been our philosophy from the start. In Bulletstorm, a lead artist from Epic once asked me: “Can I try working on the main weapon?” Three days later, he delivered not a concept, but a fully functioning weapon that we could integrate immediately. I told my partners: “This is how I want to work forever.”
When we founded The Astronauts, that was the idea. We don’t care if you are a veteran – talent is number one. If you know you’re good, and the team sees each other as great, the ego suddenly becomes unimportant. It becomes easy to criticize each other harshly without anyone taking it personally.
I once wrote a design document at night to ‘show the kids how to do it.’ I expected emojis, but in the morning they completely tore it apart from different angles. I rewrote it twice and it became so much better. That’s why we grow so slowly: We only look for people with just this level. You take the work, say thank you, and move on.
Shooter fatigue as a myth
MeinMMO: I would also like to talk a little about design philosophy and the future of the industry. A term that has often come up in the last two or three years – or even longer – is “shooter fatigue.” Shooters have supposedly had it harder in the last years. How do you see that?
Adrian Chmielarz: I believe that this is a myth and there is no shooter fatigue – at least not in the sense of single-player shooters. There might be some multiplayer PvP shooter fatigue.
Because yes, you have Valorant, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Battlefield and so on. But when it comes to high-quality single-player shooters in the AA or AAA range, there are surprisingly few.
Even with co-op shooters – which lie somewhere between PvP and single-player – there are only a few. But if you really want to dive into a first-person shooter world, longer than a typical Call of Duty campaign – let’s say 20, 30, 50 or 100 hours – what is available? Far Cry. And then?
That surprises me because I actually consider shooters to be an evergreen genre.
There are 10,000 fast indie shooters or so-called “boomer shooters.” If you want to play something like that, you will find enough.
But if you expect AA or AAA quality, there is surprisingly little. And that’s a shame. I’ll answer a bit ironically: I don’t even have games I could steal from.
14,000 hours of Destiny as inspiration
MeinMMO: Witchfire mixes RPG, Souls-like, and extraction mechanics. The gunplay is reminiscent of Destiny. You once mentioned that no major publisher would have approved this mix. Why?
Adrian Chmielarz: You are right, we mix many sub-genres. The gameplay is definitely inspired by Destiny – I have spent 14,000 hours in this game. Whether you like it or not: Mechanically, the gunplay is the best there is. We decided not to reinvent the wheel because every time we strayed from it, it got worse.
But this very mix of extraction, Souls-like, and roguelite would pose a problem in conversations with a publisher. This is one of those games you have to play to understand. If you’re investing millions, you want to fully understand a project. A battle royale can be easily pitched: “Like PUBG, but with a twist.” Done.
With Witchfire, that would be almost impossible. Look at Expedition 33: Selling an RPG with static battles and arenas sounds like a design from the 90s. Everyone would say: “Are you crazy?” But they did it – and they were right.
MeinMMO: 1.6 million wishlist entries are great, but they also bring pressure. Many people have expectations based on the Early Access. How does a small team like yours ensure that scope and technical stability meet those expectations at release? And how do you prevent scope creep or severe crunch, which is often criticized in the AAA industry?
Adrian Chmielarz: Sure, there is pressure – but we live for it. It motivates us. Why do you think this game has been in development for eight years?
Exactly for this reason: We know what it takes to create a high-quality game. And because we don’t want to grow too quickly, as we are very frugal and responsible, it just takes that long.
Two years ago, we were still 12 people. So this current growth is huge for us. We will release the game when it’s ready. And I see that the players support this.
They buy the game, they play it, and they say: “Okay, this is good. I’m having fun. So please don’t mess it up. Take your time. I would rather wait a year longer than rush the game.”
The game will be released in 2026, that’s for sure. Initially, we thought about 2024.
But we are taking our time – and that makes sense. Early Access helps us enormously in ensuring that version 1.0 will be exactly what it needs to be.
Large studios must reinvent themselves – this will be painful
MeinMMO: We are currently witnessing a kind of shift of power, almost like the fall of kings, where the established AAA formula is increasingly becoming unviable and new models are emerging. How do you see the gaming industry in the coming years? And where will you and The Astronauts find your place in it?
Adrian Chmielarz: I currently see a highly scalable model for smaller studios: Keep a strong core team – that’s where the real talent is. Whether it’s 5 or 100 people doesn’t matter. You don’t need a composer for the entire five years; you bring in experts exactly when you need them. Expedition 33 has shown this: Small core, but a long list of contributors. Outsourcing today goes far beyond just assets.
Successes like ARC Raiders show: Ex-AAA developers are doing their own thing and casting a shadow over giants like Battlefield rather than the other way around. Many AAA people see this and say: “Wait a minute, I want to make games that I really enjoy and still be successful.”
As for large AAA studios: They need to reinvent themselves. The problem is that they are like titanics, very hard to maneuver. That will take many years and be a painful process.
What they are currently doing is not working particularly well; even with titles like Starfield, the excitement is no longer at the level of Skyrim.
The next five years will be very painful for Ubisoft and others. As strange as it sounds coming from an indie developer: I hope they make a comeback. I want The Witcher 4 to be great.
If you add the topic of AI, the near future will be extremely exciting.
MeinMMO: Thank you very much for your time and the fascinating insights, Adrian.
The conversation with Adrian Chmielarz makes it clear: The gaming industry is at a turning point. While the clumsiness of the giants often stifles innovation in its infancy, studios like The Astronauts are using their freedom to redefine genres.
Whether Witchfire can withstand the high expectations by the final release in 2026 remains to be seen.
