Going Medieval, the most successful Serbian PC game, is now fully available

With over a million copies sold to date, Foxy Voxel, a team of ten from Novi Sad created the most successful Serbian PC game to date – Going Medieval. Initially published in June 2021 by Mythwright, Going Medieval is a civilization-building simulation in which you help your colony settle and thrive in a dangerous wilderness. The full release brings a variety of new content to its full version, released on March 17th:

• Reputation and Global Statistics, which change the game’s progression system;

• Grand Objectives to guide every campaign;

• new starting conditions with unique modifications;

• additional quality of life improvements;

• new buildings, items and roles for your settlers.

Foxy Voxel was founded by industry veterans in 2019 and was among the first video game development studios in Serbia to receive support from the Innovation Fund of the Republic of Serbia. On the occasion of this big news for the Serbian video game industry, we spoke with the studio’s founders, Vladimir Živković and Nino Rajačić.

SGA: What does the full release of Going Medieval mean for Foxy Voxel?

NINO: The 1.0 release, after a very successful Early Access launch, is certainly an important event in the history of Foxy Voxel. Expectations are high and we hope to at least come close to the result we achieved at the Early Access launch. This would allow us to do what we would like most – to continue working on Going Medieval. We think that even in the 1.0 version, there is a lot of potential for the game to become better and bigger. What will happen and whether anything will happen besides Going Medieval, we still don’t know.

SGA: Were the years spent in Early Access a good decision? What did you learn from this and have the opportunity to improve?

NINO: We knew from the beginning that Early Access was a good path for this type of game. Such games have a long tail. Players like to participate in development and, in our case, they really did. We pivoted several times, i.e., prioritized what the community wanted. They pulled us toward building. We thought we were going more towards simulation, with more events and storytelling, but the community was looking for features related to building and interaction with the environment. These features were on the deck burner for us and planned for later, so water, for example, was only planned for version 1.0. That’s one of the advantages of Early Access – constantly feeling the pulse of the player base. So we didn’t spend 4-5 years in our cave. If we had sat and developed the game ourselves, it certainly wouldn’t be what it is now.

SGA: You sold the game on Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG. How important was it to have a presence on platforms besides Steam?

NINO: We would do Early Access again, but only on Steam.

VLADIMIR: Yes, there’s a small percentage of sales on other platforms. And then we would have a better chance of doing a 1.0 launch on Epic Games and GOG, and it would have had a bigger impact. At that point, Early Access on these platforms seemed like “why not”. Indie games like this on the Epic Games Store don’t make much sense. Luckily, we didn’t spend a lot of time, and the time invested in making that version vs. how much we made from it was okay, but not mindblowing. Some people had a successful Early Access on Epic Games and then Early Access again on Steam, which led them to clean up the problems and make a fresh game.

SGA: How did the collaboration with Mythwright come about and how satisfied are you with it?

VLADIMIR: We started with The Irregular Corporation. They found us through Steam. They made an offer right away; they were pretty proactive. That was a nice sign that we were on the right track. We decided on them because they were really good in the early talks, fair and reasonable about the contract changes. They were acquired by Epic Games a few months before our launch, so we basically launched the game with Epic Games. About two or three years later, there were big layoffs and the people we were working with got fired. Epic Games didn’t need us on their roster, so they offered us a way out.

SGA: What did receiving a Minigrant from the Innovation Fund at the beginning of your career make possible for you?

NINO: That was probably 15-20% of the total production budget before Early Access.

VLADIMIR: It was a very nice buffer and security that we don’t necessarily have to reach every milestone on time, although The Irregular Corporation didn’t push us too hard with the deadlines. It certainly helped us be more relaxed.

SGA: If you could go back to the beginning now, would you do anything differently?

NINO: A thousand things. We learned a lot through this process. We started as experienced developers, but we were not that experienced in this segment of the industry. We would change a million things technically, regarding the project itself. But in terms of business decisions, we did very well there.

SGA: What advice do you have for studios just starting work on their first game?

VLADIMIR: Be veeeeery careful what genre you make. That’s the biggest pitfall of our generation of game developers, who wanted to make MMOs, hero shooters… Insanely popular genres with AAA titles. I think the younger generations understand this better because they grew up on Steam, not Nintendo games. I’m not saying someone can’t make a Metroidvania 2.5D platformer that will succeed, but that’s starting the game in hard mode. Play the tutorial first.

SGA: What are your expectations for the full launch?

VLADIMIR: We’re really anxious about it. I think we made good decisions when it comes to what features to include and what marketing push to make with the publisher. Now comes the luck factor. Maybe a game will come out that day that will overshadow ours. Maybe they’re not attracted to this type of game anymore. But the most pessimistic outcome is still okay for us, because we’ve tried to make the worst-case scenario okay. We have a lot of influence there, and luck is important for the best-case scenario. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.