Following its most successful year to date, publisher CI Games is officially rebranding its internal studio behind the hit modern warfare shooter series Sniper Ghost Warrior as Underdog Studio.
Eleven years since the first game’s release, the sniper series is hitting an all-time high, with the latest entry, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2, significantly outselling its predecessor and receiving the highest review scores from fans and critics alike thus far.
Along with its new name, Underdog Studio has plans for significant expansion and hopes to grow its team internationally and improve the Sniper Ghost Warrior franchise to compete with AAA FPS games from much larger studios.
As a modestly sized team, absolutely committed to the improvement of its long-running franchise, CI Games felt it time that the internal studio’s achievements be represented with a name befitting its determination. Over the last eleven years, the development team has been primarily focused on improving the SGW franchise so that one day it might compete with FPS titles from much larger studios and were incredibly humbled by the strong reception to SGW Contracts 2.
The Underdog Studio team is currently made up of 50 people, of which 68 percent work from the CI Games headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. Passionate about the SGW franchise, the developers have dedicated themselves to consistently refining the celebrated sniper experience, an example of which being the introduction of 1000m+ extreme-range shooting – a long-requested feature from the community.
Since the franchise’s initial release, the series has earned consistently increasing Metacritic scores; every new entry has outperformed the last, with the latest receiving an average score of 81 for the PlayStation 5 edition of the game, and a user score of 84 on Steam for its PC version.
“We chose the name Underdog Studio as we felt it perfectly encapsulated the plucky spirit and hardworking attitude of the development team,” said Kenton Fletcher, Lead Creative Producer at Underdog Studio.
“We are not the biggest team around but we’re a group that is packed with talent and creativity, and we work extremely hard to produce titles that punch well above our weight. We’re incredibly excited to open this new chapter in the studio’s history and look forward to achieving even higher standards of quality in our forthcoming titles,” said Fletcher.
The new name also marks an ongoing evolution of the studio, which plans to further internationalize to gain access to the very best, diverse talents across Europe, thanks to its highly successful remote working model, while continuing to expand its network of external development partners around the world. The Underdog Studio team is currently working hard to further improve its fan-favorite sniper experience and looks forward to sharing further details in the future.
