Over the past decade, New Blood Interactive has carved out a distinct space in the industry, not by chasing trends, but by doubling down on identity. From breakout hits like DUSK to ongoing successes such as ULTRAKILL, the studio has built a catalog that feels cohesive without ever becoming formulaic.

In our interview, New Blood CEO Dave Oshry reflects on the company’s evolution from early VR experimentation to a fully independent studio and publisher, explaining why avoiding venture capital and staying self-funded has been central to its long-term sustainability. Rather than scaling aggressively or chasing blockbuster ambitions, New Blood has focused on making “cool games” with a clear creative voice and selling them at accessible prices.

New Blood started as a VR game developer in 2014 before pivoting to publishing. Looking back, how much did that shape the company's identity and what you decided to stand for?

Dave Oshry, New Blood Interactive CEO: I'd say it shaped our identity in the way that we learned not to chase trends! VR was the hot new thing in 2014, and it was fun to experiment with, but ultimately, we’ve found more success by taking our time and not trying to make games for trendy new systems or platforms. 

DUSK was the game that gave New Blood its financial footing and defined its aesthetic direction. What was it about David Szymanski's pitch that made you feel it was the one worth betting on?

Dave Oshry: Everything people know and love about DUSK was already there, even in that simple one-room demo build. The look, the movement, the weapon feel, the interactivity, I knew right away that this was the kind of stuff I wanted to make, and this was the developer to do it.

Nowadays, we’re a full development studio made up of about 50 people, so we don’t need to say yes to anything or anyone other than ourselves. But I like to say that a New Blood game is a New Blood game because it could have only ever been a New Blood game. Might sound silly, but you know it when you see it.

Your catalog spans DUSK, Amid Evil, ULTRAKILL, Gloomwood, Faith, Fallen Aces, and Blood West, all retro-inspired but each very distinct in tone and mechanics. How do you keep a roster that feels cohesive without it becoming a formula?

Dave Oshry: Again, being cliché, but I like to think we pump New Blood into old genres. We like to take all the things we loved from the games that inspired us and work them into new experiences that feel familiar but also entirely new and modern. What if you crossed Thief with Resident Evil? What if you slammed Quake into Devil May Cry?

Great game design doesn’t age. So as long as you keep applying those tried and true lessons to new experiences, people will appreciate the games you create.

New Blood is famously self-funded and has publicly rejected venture capital. How do you actually sustain operations and support developers under that model, and what do you say to the argument that VC money lets studios take bigger swings?

Dave Oshry: This might sound crazy, but we fund our studio with sales from our video games and merchandise. Other studios are free to take VC money and take bigger swings if they want. Swing big, and you might hit big! But you also might miss big. We’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing for the last 12 years. Making cool games and selling them at affordable prices. Call me old-fashioned.

ULTRAKILL has sold over 2 million copies in early access. Is it true that it was developed essentially by one person? What does your support structure look like for a solo dev carrying a project of that scale?

Dave Oshry: That’s a common misconception about ULTRAKILL as well as many of our other games. Although they tend to have core marquee developers like Hakita, Dillon Rogers, or David Szymanski, most New Blood games are being worked on by up to a dozen people at any given time.

So to answer your question: That’s the support structure! As a producer, I make sure Hakita and his core team have all the support they need and make sure to shift resources around to provide additional support when necessary. Our last big Update for ULTRAKILL, Layer 8: Fraud, was a perfect example of that. We had basically every programmer at the company working on that one.

You transitioned from being purely a publisher to also developing games internally with Gloomwood. How did that shift change the way the company operates day to day, and did it change how you relate to the developers you publish externally?

Dave Oshry: As a fully remote studio, we went from having a lot of siloed developer chats to one big Discord server, basically. Everyone at New Blood can see what everyone on every project is working on, and we discuss each game’s progress during our weekly meetings. It’s a fun game of show and tell, and feedback comes from nearly every corner of the studio.

I don’t think there’s any one New Blood game that hasn’t been influenced by a developer from another game at this point. With the exception of Hyperstrange, with whom we work on their game Blood West, there are no external teams anymore. We’re one big caffeinated group of dorks.

Your whole pipeline leans heavily on early access, most of your titles ship in EA, and you build communities over the years. What does a healthy early access roadmap look like from a publisher's perspective, and what are the warning signs that a game is struggling in that Phase?

Dave Oshry: Well, we’ve never done road maps for Early Access games because we would never meet any of those deadlines! I hate deadlines, and I hate release dates. In a perfect world, you’d just work on games forever until they’re perfect—and some people might argue that we do—but it’s a balancing act about what you want to get done, how much you can get done, when you can get it done, and the best time to release updates.

Doing Early Access the right way means starting with a very solid base to build on, having a clear idea of where you want to get to, but being able to adjust how you get there based on feedback from the people playing (and paying for) your game.

We try to focus on big content updates focused on big features players have been asking for, instead of small incremental updates. They tend to take longer, but I’d say playing our games in Early Access feels like watching and then waiting for a new season of your favorite TV show. Except you have a say in how the show gets made.

The art direction across New Blood's catalog is distinctive: low-poly, fast, brutal, saturated. It never feels like a gimmick. How much does visual and aesthetic fit factor into signing a game, and is there a version of New Blood that publishes something that looks totally different?

Dave Oshry: The art styles of our games tend to be based on the games, genres, and times that inspired them. DUSK was supposed to look like a game that could have literally come out in 1996.

FAITH’s visuals are based on old Atari-era games. Tenebris Somnia brings that forward a generation or two and adds live-action cutscenes. Gloomwood is aiming for a very late 90s Looking Glass or Source engine aesthetic. ULTRAKILL has the PS1 vibes. Fallen Aces looks like a living comic book. Every game is already totally different, I’d say. Especially things like our upcoming top-down shooter or CRPG. 

You've talked openly about how big studios breed environments where developers stop actually enjoying games. How does New Blood actively try to prevent that internally, and is it even possible to scale up without eventually becoming the thing you're fighting against?

Dave Oshry: I think the trick is to realize when you’ve grown big enough and have everything you need. Bethesda made Skyrim with 100 people. They all knew each other. They were friends. They’d worked together for years. They could have stopped there. We’re about 50 people now. We all know each other. We’re friends. We’ve worked together for years. We make great games together. So I think we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing. It’s worked for us so far.

Dave Oshry, CEO of New Blood Interactive

Interview conducted by Kirill Tokarev

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