Presentation
A kung-fu game built around aging.
A biomechanical horror experience that looks as if it grew inside an H. R. Giger nightmare.
An adventure inspired by New Caledonia.
A car as your only refuge in the middle of supernatural anomalies.
A French RPG blending Belle Époque influences, fantasy and turn-based combat.
Then a football game that prefers placing the camera right behind the players rather than letting you watch the pitch from the stands.
Sifu, Scorn, Tchia, Pacific Drive, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Rematch do not particularly look like different variations of the same publishing strategy.
That is precisely the point.
Kepler Interactive was founded in 2021 around an unusual idea: build a structure capable of providing funding, publishing and shared resources to several independent studios without turning those studios into simple departments of a centralized group.
At launch, Kepler brought together several independent developers under a shared structure and received $120 million in funding from NetEase, which became a minority investor. The studios retained their operational autonomy while participating in major decisions affecting the group.
At first glance, the model is unusual.
A publisher partly owned by the developers it supports.
Studios brought together without being merged.
A central structure designed to provide greater resources without deciding in place of the people actually making the games.
Since then, Kepler has expanded beyond that original founding collective. The company also works with external developers and now describes itself as a video game company and creative studio based in London, selecting projects from around the world for their art direction, vision and willingness to experiment.
Kepler is not really trying to manufacture a “Kepler game.” It is looking for games that seem impossible to confuse with the one next to them.
History
2021: trying something other than the traditional publisher
When Kepler Interactive appeared in 2021, the project was not simply about creating another publisher.
The structure launched as a group co-owned and run alongside independent developers.
Seven development companies participated in this initial organization, including Alpha Channel and Sloclap. The stated goal was to pool funding, resources and expertise while leaving each studio responsible for its own creative and operational decisions.
A board bringing together the studios participates in Kepler’s major decisions.
But it is not intended to interfere with their day-to-day production.
That distinction matters.
The principle is not:
“We buy you, then leave you alone.”
It is closer to:
“We build together the structure that should allow us to remain independent.”
The idea emerged at a time when the video game industry was experiencing a major wave of acquisitions and consolidation.
Kepler chose a different way to combine forces.
$120 million to get started
The launch immediately drew attention thanks to a $120 million investment from NetEase.
The Chinese company took a minority stake, while Kepler announced its intention to fund and publish games for PC and consoles.
That amount gave the young company resources that were highly unusual for a publisher that had only just appeared.
But money alone did not define the project.
Kepler still had to prove that a collective of studios with very different creative sensibilities could produce a coherent editorial identity without turning that coherence into uniformity.
Its first games provided an answer rather quickly.
Sifu, Scorn and Tchia: three ways not to look alike
In 2022, Kepler notably supported Sifu, developed by Sloclap, and Scorn, developed by Ebb Software.
The contrast could hardly be greater.
Sifu is built around highly readable kung-fu combat, precise animation and an aging mechanic directly tied to the player’s progression.
Scorn, by contrast, builds a slow, oppressive and almost organic experience where architecture, creatures and machines appear to belong to the same diseased organism.
The following year, Tchia, developed by Awaceb, changed direction completely again with a tropical open world inspired by New Caledonia, built around exploration, music and the ability to possess animals and objects.
Three projects.
Three art directions.
Three ways to play.
And already, a first indication of what Kepler seems to be looking for.
Not a genre.
Not a particular mechanic.
A visible conviction.
The catalogue becomes the real identity
Kepler now describes its partnerships through a search for games combining experimental design and distinctive art direction.
That phrasing helps explain its catalogue.
Pacific Drive turns a car into a companion, shelter and machine to maintain inside an exclusion zone filled with anomalies.
Ultros combines metroidvania structure, a time loop, psychedelic science fiction and almost hallucinatory vegetation.
Bionic Bay builds its platforming around physics manipulation and teleportation inside a biomechanical universe.
Cat Quest III turns lighthearted adventure into a feline pirate odyssey.
The games do not need to share the same tone.
Instead, they need an idea strong enough that a few images or a few minutes of play already reveal something distinctive.
The catalogue therefore becomes the publisher’s personality.
Not because all its productions look alike.
Because they are rather good at refusing to look like everything else.
Pacific Drive: supporting studios outside the collective
Kepler’s development gradually expanded beyond the studios connected to its original structure.
Pacific Drive, developed by Ironwood Studios, clearly demonstrates this evolution.
Ironwood is not presented as an internal Kepler studio.
It remains the developer of its own game.
Kepler acts as its publishing partner.
That distinction matters because it reveals how the model evolved.
Kepler is no longer only an organization created to pool resources between a handful of founding studios.
It has also become a publisher capable of selecting and supporting independent creators outside that original circle.
The collective becomes a publishing house.
Without entirely ceasing to be a collective.
Clair Obscur: when the bet changes scale
Then came Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Developed by French studio Sandfall Interactive, the game combines an art direction inspired by the Belle Époque, a melancholic fantasy world and a turn-based combat system enhanced with real-time actions.
On paper, the project contains exactly the kind of mixture Kepler seems to appreciate.
A recognizable cultural reference.
A strong visual identity.
A familiar mechanic pushed in another direction.
And enough personality to avoid feeling like simply “another RPG.”
Its release in 2025 brought considerable visibility to both Sandfall Interactive and Kepler and placed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 at the center of the publisher’s current identity.
For Kepler, the game also represents something important.
Proof that a catalogue built around relatively unusual projects does not prevent those projects from reaching a much broader audience.
Strangeness is not necessarily the enemy of success.
Sometimes, it is precisely what gets you noticed.
Rematch: relationships with studios continue
Also in 2025, Sloclap released Rematch with Kepler.
The French studio was already one of the historic members associated with Kepler’s creation and had reached a broad audience with Sifu.
But rather than simply making another martial arts game, Sloclap changed fields.
Literally.
Rematch offers an interpretation of multiplayer football much closer to direct action than traditional simulation.
Once again, the relationship between Kepler and its partners does not appear to be built around the obligation to reproduce what worked before.
A studio can change genre.
Change audience.
Change rules.
As long as the project retains a sufficiently clear vision.
From publisher to creative platform
By 2026, Kepler describes itself less and less as a simple distributor of games.
Its website speaks of a video game company and creative studio.
Its recruitment materials refer to projects drawing inspiration from:
- art;
- culture;
- music;
- fashion;
- cinema;
- and more broadly, disciplines beyond video games alone.
That evolution can also be seen in its communication.
Kepler develops creative collaborations, editorial content, events and even its own magazine, Reset.
The goal seems to be gradually expanding beyond:
“Here is our next game.”
Kepler is also trying to build a cultural environment around its productions.
A fairly coherent position for a publisher that says it selects games whose own references extend beyond the usual boundaries of the medium.
What sets it apart
A publisher that shares part of the table
Kepler’s original structure remains its most obvious distinguishing feature.
When it was created, the associated studios were not simply suppliers looking for financing and distribution.
They also participated in the structure supporting them.
The model aims to create an unusual balance between:
- shared resources;
- funding;
- publishing expertise;
- studio autonomy;
- participation in major decisions.
That obviously does not remove the economic realities of operating a group or a publishing company.
But the original intention changes the relationship.
The developer is not simply invited to the table. They own part of the table.
It is a different answer to a fairly traditional problem: how can an independent studio grow without gradually being asked to become something else?
“Hands Off”
That philosophy also appears in the way Kepler currently addresses studios pitching their projects.
One of its stated values is “Hands Off.”
The publisher asks developers to show what they genuinely want to create and how they plan to take the project through to release.
It does not ask them to guess what Kepler wants to see.
The message is fairly clear:
do not pitch us the game you think we want to publish; pitch us the game you want to make.
That does not mean an absence of production work, financing, marketing or constraints.
A publisher is still a publisher.
But it places the developer’s vision at the beginning of the relationship rather than trying to replace it with a publishing formula.
An editorial identity without a single aesthetic
Many publishers develop an immediately recognizable identity.
At Kepler, that identity works differently.
Sifu does not look like Tchia.
Tchia does not look like Scorn.
Scorn does not look like Clair Obscur.
Clair Obscur does not look like Rematch.
The coherence therefore comes less from the visual result than from the strength of intent.
Kepler officially emphasizes three ideas:
authenticity, craftsmanship and vision.
The company says it believes in new ideas created with conviction and informed by a broader awareness of culture.
That creates an interesting editorial line.
Do not ask:
“Does this game look like the other Kepler games?”
Instead ask:
“Does it look enough like itself?”
Looking beyond video games
This may be the most distinctive aspect of its current positioning.
Kepler emphasizes creators who seek influences beyond other games.
Art.
Fashion.
Music.
Architecture.
Cinema.
Lived experiences.
Local culture.
That openness is clearly visible in several productions from its catalogue.
Tchia cannot really be separated from its New Caledonian inspiration.
Clair Obscur uses a reimagined France filtered through the Belle Époque.
Sifu directly engages with the imagination and visual language of martial arts cinema.
Scorn draws on a biomechanical artistic tradition that extends far beyond video games.
The game therefore becomes a meeting point.
Not a closed loop where games only reference other games.
Fewer signatures, more deliberate choices
Kepler also indicates that it looks for premium PC and console projects and prefers teams to present something already playable or, at minimum, a solid proof of concept.
That selection is reflected in a relatively concentrated catalogue.
The goal is not to fill a release calendar with any project that looks marketable enough.
The catalogue needs to remain readable.
That scarcity also gives more weight to each new signing.
When a publisher releases hundreds of games, its name can become almost invisible.
When the selection is tighter, every choice says something.
At Kepler, publishing also becomes a form of curation.
Good to know
- Kepler Interactive was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in London.
- Kepler is not a traditional development studio. Its main activity is publishing, financing, developer support and broader creative work;
editeur_jeuis therefore the most appropriate PANACHES CULTURE entity type. - The company launched around seven independent development companies, including Alpha Channel and Sloclap.
- NetEase invested $120 million in Kepler at its launch in 2021 and took a minority stake in the company.
- The original model allows associated studios to participate in major decisions while retaining their operational autonomy.
- Kepler currently describes itself as a video game company and creative studio based in London.
- Its catalogue includes Sifu, Scorn, Tchia, Pacific Drive, Ultros, Cat Quest III, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, Bionic Bay, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Rematch.
- Sandfall Interactive remains the developer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: Kepler is its publishing partner and should therefore not be listed as the developer on the work fiche.
- Ironwood Studios develops Pacific Drive, another important example of a project published by Kepler without its developer being absorbed into the company.
- Tactical Adventures is among the companies currently connected to Kepler’s professional ecosystem, and Solasta II appears in the publisher’s current catalogue.
- Kepler primarily looks for premium PC and console projects and says it favors concepts that already have a playable build or a strong proof of concept.
- The company currently identifies authenticity, craftsmanship and vision as core editorial values, with particular attention given to games inspired by art and culture in the broadest sense.