Iron Galaxy Shares Experience in Co-Developing & Creating Original Titles

How was Iron Galaxy founded? What vision or industry gap were you aiming to address, and how has that evolved over time?

Iron Galaxy: Our company was founded in 2008 with the goal of providing engineering services to developers in the industry. Over the years, we have added Art and Design to our comprehensive array of capabilities. A constant at Iron Galaxy has always been learning new skills, solving problems, and taking on new challenges that excite us. One of our core specialties has been migrating video games from one platform to another so publishers can unlock new communities for their franchises.

More recently, we have operated as the lead developer for entire projects under our control (Killer Instinct, Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 3+4), as well as creating brand new games that are based on our own vision (Rumbleverse). We are always looking for new opportunities. Overall, we have always wanted to make games with our friends, and we feel very fortunate to do that.

What key milestones or turning points most shaped the identity of the studio? How would you identify the studio and its mission these days?

Iron Galaxy: We have always learned by doing. Our inflection points have come from tackling new projects, working with new partners, or opening studios in new locations. Each new challenge has enabled us to build on and grow beyond the total of our combined experience and has solidified the foundation for what comes next.  We thrive on exploring the unknown and adapting to the shifting landscape of technologies of today to meet players where they are tomorrow.  

Amidst our growth and transformation, we remain committed to excellence in development and a developer-first culture. Our partners expect the highest standard of work and collaboration from us. Our people expect us to operate with dignity and compassion. We have found that these two expectations lead to the best outcome. When you put people first, they do their best work. As a result, we deliver game experiences that are reliable and loved by players and critics alike. Our mission is to continue producing the work that our partners expect while nurturing new collaborators and communities. 

Is Iron Galaxy more of an engineering or an art studio? How does your engineering heritage influence how you approach new projects today?

Iron Galaxy: We can provide a wide range of services to anyone with a game that needs to be enhanced, migrated, or rebuilt from the ground up. Our origin-story as an engineering powerhouse ensures that the work we do will be stable and reliable. Our engineering expertise helps us anticipate issues and provide strong solutions.

On that solid foundation, we have added layers of talent and skill that enable us to assume accountability for every aspect of making a great game. We can embed with our partners to provide them with whatever they need. We can also explore our inspirations to make a game of our own and understand early what technical pitfalls we might hit. During Rumbleverse, we knew it would be a technical challenge to have a larger number of characters on screen, engaged in melee combat all at once. Having a tech-forward studio helped us recognize the challenge early and direct resources to solving the issue. If you’ve played Rumbleverse, you know that we surmounted the challenge.

You’ve got a diverse portfolio. How do you maintain quality and consistency across co-development work and original titles?

Iron Galaxy: Stability is our north star at Iron Galaxy. It’s why so many publishers trust us with their games. Like any developer, a focus on Quality Assurance (or “Test” in some circles), is essential. We staff our own test teams, and they play our games extensively during every phase of development. We work closely with QA teams on the partner side to assess the quality of ongoing work and identify issues we need to fix prior to launch. In some cases, the role we play on a project can be isolated to the function of Quality Assurance, as we augment a partner team for a final bug-bash.

Quality and consistency also rely on a well-planned and managed creative process. Our Production Team follows a modular system that has been refined over many product launches. Playbooks guide every phase, initiation, development, and close-out. We have clear standards for partner onboarding, roadmaps, milestones, and build reviews, while remaining adaptable to each environment.

Our pillars (leadership and trust, collaboration and alignment, operational excellence with adaptability, and accountability) shape how we lead and make decisions. We are tool-agnostic by design. We integrate seamlessly with Jira, ADO, Perforce, or bespoke pipelines and provide structured oversight. Backed by a team with diverse skills from coordination to strategic planning and quality assurance, we meet any project requirements and uphold a strong quality bar at every gate.

What major learnings from past collaborations – such as Killer Instinct or your large-scale porting projects – continue to guide your teams?

Iron Galaxy: To evolve as a developer, there is no finer classroom than shipping a game. We have achieved this myriad of times, and we always come away with new learnings. Killer Instinct gave us an opportunity to reinforce our reputation as a studio that loves fighting games. It also enabled us to prove that we could manage a community and extend the life cycle of a franchise. Working on a game title that has history, like Killer Instinct or Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, it’s crucial to understand the community. As we added our own creative stamp, it was important to us that our contribution resonated with the players who love those games.

Working on large-scale projects requires an understanding that unexpected challenges will always arise. With Killer Instinct, we really saw the benefits of good project management. Having a well-executed roadmap is the key to success with any major dev cycle.

How does your co-development partnership usually work? What kind of work do you do for your partners, and how is it usually organized?

Iron Galaxy: Each of our partners benefits from a bespoke scope for our work with them. We approach every opportunity with a customized team and development schedule. There is no off-the-shelf solution at Iron Galaxy. We discover what our partners want to accomplish and embed with them to get that done in the best way possible. Production leads this work every day, driving schedules, guiding the team, and collaborating closely with partners to ensure that milestones are met and communication stays clear and consistent. This flexibility, combined with strong leadership and structured oversight, allows us to maintain quality while meeting unique requirements.

What internal structures or processes help your studio switch between being a creative lead and a collaborative partner?

Iron Galaxy: Whether we are making a game for a partner or for ourselves, our development team is scalable and flexible. Every project has a specific shape and size, and that informs the blend of Producers, Engineers, Artists, Designers, and Quality Assurance people that get deployed to it. Our ability to plan for how many devs we need to get the job done, and how long it will take them to do the work, enables us to meet our deadlines and operate within a budget without burning out our people.

Collaboration and invention both have their strengths and perks. Working on a game that belongs to a partner requires constant feedback and input. We’re always sensitive to the goals they have for their property. When the game is inspired by our own vision, we have more freedom to follow our instincts and passions, but it’s also a riskier endeavor to work on our own.

Is it getting riskier to work on original IPs? Do you have any advice on how to make your own games while maintaining your co-dev business?

Iron Galaxy: It’s no secret that our industry has been very risk-averse in recent years. We are seeing a renewed appetite for new playable experiences, but a common requirement is that they need to be based on an existing property. Video game publishers want to continue to surprise players in new and exciting ways, but successful projects are most often based on characters that have a built-in fanbase. Another way to create your own IP is to spend less money. We have seen a rise in Indie titles over the last couple of years that is exciting. We do not expect that to go away.

What does an ideal co-development relationship look like for Iron Galaxy in terms of workflow, communication, and decision-making?

Iron Galaxy: We thrive on steady collaboration. When a partner entrusts us with their game, we stay engaged with them throughout the development process. Our approach centers on strong communication and transparency. The full duration of work relies on a series of milestone reviews and green light approvals. We meet regularly, so partners always have visibility of our progress and have the opportunity to provide input. We’re very sensitive to the fact that our hard work is going into their game, so bringing them along on that journey is key to our success as a co-developer and delivering a quality product.

How does the studio encourage experimentation and innovation – whether technical, design-driven, or related to live-service models?

Iron Galaxy: At any given moment, developers at Iron Galaxy who are between partner deployments are conducting research and development. Our goals for these smaller projects include experimenting with new platforms or prototyping new playable experiences. We always encourage learning and growth at Iron Galaxy. One of the best things about working for us is that our developers are constantly challenged to adapt to different genres and technologies. We keep our people on the bleeding edge of innovation so we can always answer a call to help our partners overcome their challenges.

What is your outlook on the future of the game market – particularly regarding production scale, player expectations, and the sustainability of large-budget development?

Iron Galaxy: Right now, our industry is looking for ways to achieve greater profitability in the marketplace with less investment. Video game developers are being challenged to work faster and appeal to more players on more platforms. We are seeing the rise of indie games and smaller studios, which puts us in a great place to support more partners or deploy our people as smaller teams to work on more of our ideas.

Finally, if you were to go on the market these days, how would you approach distributing your game? Steam, publisher, some self-publishing system? Let us know.

Iron Galaxy: Thanks to evolutions of our industry in recent years, there are more options available to the creators of games. We still do amazing work with large publishers who appeal to global communities, including Activision, Riot, EA, Bethesda, Epic, and Sony. At the same time, we are evaluating the possibility of self-publishing our own original games created with the help of funding partners who don’t traditionally invest in entertainment. It makes sense to release games on as many platforms as possible, so the largest communities of players can enjoy them. We are also excited by the emergence of new platforms that support different fanbases. There is space for many approaches to thrive.

Iron Galaxy, Game Development Studio