Developing a game with the community – meet Yarnhub
Yarnhub Animation Studios truly has a different story arc than your typical game dev studio. In 2021, they were founded for a different purpose altogether – to create animated films about history. In trying to take the viewer into the action alongside the people who lived through the portrayed events, they managed to grow a passionate audience. So passionate, in fact, that the community started demanding content where they would participate in the historical action even more so – a video game.
That is how Brass Rain was born – an upcoming World War II title, where you will get to choose sides, work as a team and maybe even change history. This combat game offers realistic recreations of major World War II events, with emphasis on the first iconic battles. Brass Rain will ultimately feature co-op, PvP and armored vehicles, later allowing players to storm enemy lines in tanks, pilot aircraft and hunt in frigates.
We sat down and chatted a bit with a representative of our new member company, Head of Games, Cyril Barrow. This is your chance to find out what they are all about!
SGA: Can you tell us a bit about Yarnhub, how it came to be?
Cyril: Yarnhub started in 2021 as a 3D animation studio focused on military history. Our long-format videos tell emotional, often overlooked stories of bravery and brotherhood. We now have over 2 million subscribers and 35M monthly views. We quickly grew a global community of history lovers—many of whom also happen to be gamers.
SGA: How did you decide to move from creating animated videos to a video game?
Cyril: It came straight from the audience. For years, people have commented: “Is this a game? Where can I play it?” So we decided to build one. Our videos are made in Unreal Engine 5, and with our storytelling style and visual quality, it felt like the natural next step. We are now expanding the team with game experts.
SGA: Tell us a bit about Brass Rain. What makes it stand out in the sea of thousands of games that get released each year?
Cyril: Brass Rain is a historically grounded combat game built in Unreal Engine 5. What makes it unique is how it’s connected to our YouTube channel—new content in our films becomes playable in the game. That means fresh scenarios, built-in hype and a community already engaged before launch. It’s a game and a living content loop.
SGA: What are the challenges of translating an IP from one medium into another?
Cyril: In animation, we control everything—pacing, tone, visuals. In games, the player takes the wheel. The challenge is making something that still feels like a Yarnhub story but gives players freedom. We’re solving that with lots of prototyping and playtesting to find the right balance between direction and agency.
SGA: What are the roles the community plays in your game dev process? Why do you think that this is important?
Cyril: Our community is core to everything. They’re helping us shape the game through comments, surveys and playtests. Since they’ve been with us from the beginning, they care about the tone and historical accuracy as much as we do. Building the game with them makes it better—and makes sure we’re not building in a vacuum.
SGA: Why did you choose to do all the things you do in Unreal Engine? Are there any benefits when it comes to transmedia projects?
Cyril: Unreal Engine is our home base—we already use it for animation, so transitioning into game development was seamless. It lets us reuse assets, maintain visual consistency and create efficiently. For transmedia, it’s a huge win: one world, shared across both films and gameplay, with no quality drop between the two.SGA: Thank you, Cyril, for a great talk! We can’t wait to see where Yarnhub goes from here!