Call for applications for the new Creative Europe MEDIA grant has been announced + find out which Serbian project received it in the last cycle!
New Call for Applications
The CREA-MEDIA-2027-DEVVGIM: Video games and immersive content development call is intended for European independent companies developing narrative video games and interactive immersive experiences, with the potential for global commercial distribution. The focus is not on financing full game development, but on concept development and pre-production.
Who can apply?
The application is open to legal entities, including individuals or consortia with at least two participants. The company must have a previously published video game.
What kind of project is acceptable?
The project must be a narrative video game or an interactive narrative immersive experience. The narrative should be integrated throughout the game/experience itself, and not just as its introduction or conclusion. The call is particularly looking for games with a high level of originality, creativity and innovation. It is important that the project is not yet in development: the prototype should be the result of the supported development phase, and the start of production must be planned at least 10 months after the application deadline. Development should not last longer than 36 months.
The call expressly excludes, among other things, puzzle, sports, racing, rhythm, party and similar games, as well as quizzes, word and number-based games, and projects whose main purpose is education, training, or therapy.
How big is the grant?
The total budget of the call is EUR 13.5 million, while the maximum grant per project is EUR 200,000.
What will evaluators look at most?
A total of 100 points can be earned, and at least 70 are required to pass:
- Relevance carries the greatest number of points – 35 points, where the originality of the concept and story, the level of innovation, sustainability and environmental responsibility, as well as gender equality, inclusion, diversity and representativeness are assessed.
- Quality of content and activities is 25 points and includes the quality of storytelling, visual approach, sound design, accessibility measures, gameplay, level and character design, and the connection of gameplay to the story.
- Project management carries 20 points, and Dissemination another 20 points.
The application deadline is 2 February 2027 at 5 PM, and the applications are submitted electronically via the portal. The evaluation is planned from February to June 2027, the results in July, and the signing of the contract in October 2027. It is also important that the call is currently marked as dependent on the final adoption of the EU budget for 2027.
And here’s who received the Creative Europe MEDIA grant this year!
We already spoke with Saša Veličković, Game Director of the Niš-based Entropic Island studio, about how they received a Creative Europe MEDIA grant for their upcoming game Sova in 2023. And this year, the team showed that they absolutely mastered this call!
This year, the Hollowpoint project received grant support.
The game in question is a psychological survival horror game set in The City, a fictional Eastern European urban center scarred by war, ideology and generational trauma. Players assume the role of Andrei Vorenik, a former army doctor struggling with severe PTSD and psychosis. The city is both a playground and a prison: players scavenge resources, navigate dangerous streets, encounter human and monstrous threats, and aid survivors – all while confronting the Rot, a mysterious plague that affects both the living and the city itself, reflecting the moral and structural decay around Andrei.
The story is delivered through an unreliable narrator, blending memory, hallucination and reality. Survivors – some real, some imagined – provide fragments of the world’s history, while environmental storytelling, journal entries, maps and equipment notes reveal further layers of The City and Andrei’s psyche. Information is often incomplete or misleading, forcing the player to question what is true and what is a product of Andrei’s fractured perception. Player interactions are carefully designed to amplify vulnerability and moral ambiguity. “Guide” NPCs may lead Andrei toward understanding, or draw him deeper into hallucination and violence. Combat, survival and resource management are secondary to empathy, connection, and reflection: choices carry weight, often forcing trade-offs between self-preservation and aiding others.
At its core, Hollowpoint is a game about healing and hope amid decay. Recovery is not measured by defeating enemies or mastering mechanics, but through confronting trauma, challenging inherited myths and fostering human connection – even when the city, its institutions, and Andrei himself seem irreparably broken.
Regarding his repeated success in the competition, Saša says the following:
“We are thrilled to have received a Creative Europe grant for the second time. At a time when the entire video game industry is uncertain and money is hard to come by, we are incredibly privileged to continue working without (many) financial headaches.
I think it was easier to plan and write the application this time because we knew what was expected of us, and I’m sure that the fact that we had already successfully closed the previous project also helped us in the evaluation.
On the other hand, we were much more careful and thorough with the new call. One reason for this is that the competition is significantly higher – 336 projects submitted compared to 138 in 2023. Another reason is that Hollowpoint deals with far more serious and difficult topics than anything we have worked on before.”