Grab your holy chainsword Space Marine, a Boltgun DLC is coming! 💥

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Purge heretics in Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun: Forges of Corruption on June 18th! 💥

It’s been very hard to keep this one under wraps, but we’re excited to share that Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun will be getting a new DLC on June 18th for PlayStation, Xbox and PC! A Nintendo Switch version will also be released at a later date.

Prepare for a brand-new chapter of adrenaline-pumping shootout in the new Forges of Corruption DLC!

Explore new environments and stop Chaos' corruption before it engulfs the entire world of Graia! Exterminate new enemies like the monstrous Hellbrute, the heavy weapon-wielding Havoc, and the vicious lightning claws of the Terminator. Burn hordes of heretics with your brand new Multi-Melta or blow them away with the Missile Launcher.

Watch the full glorious announcement trailer below, for the emperor!

The launch of the Forges of Corruption DLC will also coincide with two highly requested free updates to the base game:  

  • 💥 Dive into a new Horde mode! How long can you survive?

  • 🌍 A navigation Guide to help direct the Emperor’s Chosen through levels

There’ll also be a number of bug fixes and quality of life improvements implemented as well.

Press Coverage

We’ve had lots of great coverage of our DLC announcement, you can check some of it out below:

Dev Q&A Event

UPDATE: The Boltgun Q+A is now over, thanks so much to everyone who dropped by, including the real Malum Caedo - Rahul! We had a blast talking all things Warhammer and Boltgun. If you have any other questions feels free to drop into our Discord, in the #Boltgun section to chat to us! Join the Discord here!

To celebrate the announcement, we’re also going to be hosting an exclusive Q&A event in our Discord, where players can chat to the devs about all things Warhammer 40,000, Boltgun, and the upcoming DLC!

Make sure to join before 5pm BST on 24th May to take part > discord.gg/2yWagXw 

Only in death does duty end! 

Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun: Forges of Corruption will be available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox on June 18th. A Nintendo Switch version will also be released at a later date.

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

The votes are in - Democracy 4: Console Edition will launch on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation & Xbox

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Democracy 4: Console Edition will be ready to run for office on 5th June 2024. 👩‍⚖️ 

We are delighted to announce that Democracy 4: Console Edition will be set to govern Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles on 5th June 2024! We have been working hard to adapt the original PC version, by Positech Games, for consoles and can’t wait for it to launch next month. 

Democracy 4: Console Edition lets you take the role of President/Prime Minister to govern one of several countries for a term. You will be able to choose policies, laws, and take other actions which will positively impact some areas of your country, while having a negative effect on others. 

Practice your speech in the mirror, think about how possible it will be to meet your manifesto, and lead your country of choice on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox from 5th June 2024! 

Pre-orders are now live on all three platforms, and you can also wishlist the game via these store pages: 

 
 

If you’re new to Democracy, check out our announcement trailer below: 

About Democracy 4: Console Edition 

Democracy 4: Console Edition lets you take the role of President/Prime Minister to govern one of several countries for a term and, potentially, beyond. You will be able to choose policies, laws, and take other actions which will positively impact some areas of your country, while having a negative effect on others. 

Built on a custom-built neural network designed to model the opinions, beliefs, thoughts and biases of thousands of virtual citizens, Democracy 4: Console Edition is the state-of-the-art in political simulation games.  

Democracy 4: Console Edition is the fourth game in the Democracy series, which started in 2005. The latest version builds on the past while adding a host of new features such as: 

  • 📰 Media reports 

  • 🤝🏻 Coalition governments 

  • 🚨 Emergency powers 

  • 👩🏻‍⚖️ Three-party systems  

Democracy 4: Console Edition will be available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles from 5th June 2024. 

Press coverage for Democracy 4: Console Edition

Check out the press coverage for the Democracy 4: Console Edition announcement below

Democracy 4: Console Edition will be available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles from 5th June 2024. 

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

Steam Festival Digital Tabletop Fest 4: Roll of the Dice arrives March 7th-11th 🎲

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We are thrilled to announce that Digital Tabletop Fest is back on Steam! From March 7th 6pm GMT through March 11th at 6pm GMT, we'll be celebrating a variety of tabletop-inspired games and the people who play them. The theme for this year's event is Roll of the Dice, which will have a focus on games with a central theme of chance.

Visitors can experience a variety of discounts, view festival-exclusive streams featuring incredible titles and guests, as well as gain insight into what’s next for the genre.

What can you expect from Roll of the Dice? 

🎉 Over 100 games participating including hits such as Baldur’s Gate 3, V Rising, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, and Disco Elysium. 

🚀 Our team are joined by the European Space Agency, discussing how real-life rocket science plays a part in Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life. 

🗣 Panels with developer guests from Disco Elysium, Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, Vampire: The Masquerade® - Bloodlines™ 2, and more! 

💸 Wide array of discounts on tabletop-inspired titles 

🎮  Exclusive playthroughs and original content from Wingspan, Breachway, Sulfur, and Mori Carta. 

Schedule for Digital Tabletop Fest 4: Roll of the Dice 📅 

Check out the schedule below and mark your calendars so you don’t miss out on exclusive panels and playthroughs – we can’t wait to see you there! 

Digital Tabletop Fest 4: Roll of the Dice takes place on Steam from March 7th – 11th, live from 6pm GMT. The promotion will end at 6pm GMT on March 11th. For more information, follow @SteamFestivals and @AurochDigital.  

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

How game developers can predict the future with correct forecasting techniques

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Our Production Director, Peter Willington, recently published a piece with Games Developer around forecasting and predictions when making video games. Good forecasting is hugely important to what we do, and our values, as good forecasting allows us to make great games without video game crunch.

Below we have an intro about predictions and forecasting from Peter as well as a link to where you can read the full article from him on Games Developer. If you’re interested in joining the games industry, how Auroch Digital works as a studio, or understanding how games are made, give it a read!

Stories about prediction ☔

Once, I bought a ticket for The National Lottery. You picked six numbers from a list that went up to 59. Then, on the night of the draw, after a quick prediction on who would win by Mystic Meg, a button was pushed beginning “the drawing process” from a giant machine filled with numbered balls, which would then randomly pick six regular balls and a “Bonus Ball”. If three or more of your numbers were drawn, you won a prize; the more numbers you got right, the higher the pay out. That day, I predicted the numbers of three balls, and I won a tenner. 

This was, for all intents and purposes, a game of chance. Sure, it might theoretically be possible to predict which numbers would be drawn - either you believe it’s possible to have perfect knowledge of the physics at work and the state of all the atoms in the universe at the time of the draw, or you believe a TV astrologist from Accrington really was gifted the ability to read the future - but let’s just assume for now that neither of these things is possible. Winners of the lottery are able to predict which numbers will win, but their “method” is sheer luck. 

Another time in my life, I went to Bristol city centre, where Auroch is based. I took a raincoat, because the weather forecast app I used claimed there was an 80% chance of rain. The app I use is generally right, so I predicted I would need a raincoat. It rained that day, so I got that prediction right too. 

Prediction is not one thing 🤞

See, we often think of prediction as being a series of definitives: your prediction was either right or wrong; an event can either be predicted or it can’t; the value of types of predictions are worthwhile or worthless; you use one method of predicting or you use another; prediction methods work or they don’t. But as the examples above demonstrate, prediction actually sits on a series of scales. 

For the lottery, there was almost 0% certainty I could predict which numbers would be chosen by Guinevere, but I still won, and my prediction model (guessing randomly) was the same used by millions of others who didn’t win. Not only that, but there are degrees of success; my “method” won me £10, but it could have won me £10 million. 

My weather app defined an amount of certainty for rain. It didn’t say “it will rain” or “it won’t rain”, instead it effectively said “80% of the times we have this data, it rains”. And even then I added to this prediction an appropriate weighting to the app itself’s ability to predict weather accurately. 

Prediction then, is complex and messy. 

Predictions and video games 🎮

Making video games, or any commercial art, is also complex and messy. During development things go wrong, a turn of events up-ends everything, assumptions are challenged, consumer tastes change. This isn’t a complicated environment we’re working in, it’s a complex one. 

But this doesn’t mean that we’re playing a game of chance when it comes to predicting many of the things that we care about when making video games. In fact, I would argue that we can get reasonably good at prediction within the medium, and I think forecasting is one of them. 

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

The Year In Review 2023

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And just like that, another year has come and gone! 2023 has been a landmark year for Auroch Digital with new titles released and announced, work-for-hire projects, partnerships, Steam events, and more. We also raised money for charity, wrote blog posts, published podcasts and so much more. Come join us on a journey throughout the year and reflect on 2023 with us!

January

The year kicked off with Production Director, Peter Willington, writing a blog on ‘How to Create an Authentic Video Game’. Off the back of the release of Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator, Peter discusses the research journey of the team and the impact it had on the development of Brewmaster, as well as research for our other titles.

Here you can see some of the team on their visit to our partners Moor Beer - who brewed the official Brewmaster beer!

February

The first of two busy months for Auroch kicks off with us being the main sponsor of the Bristol Games Hub’s Global Game Jam. It took place on February 3rd and there was a total of 17 games created that revolved around the theme of roots. Thank you to everyone who participated in this great event. There were such a wide variety of games created, and you can view and play each of them here.

Auroch Digital was voted the number one best company to work for in the South West of England for Q1 of 2023. We are extremely proud to be recognised for such an award and thank the Best Companies Accreditation for recognising our and Sumo Group’s efforts to make the company as good as it can be!  

The Auroch Digital Podcast returned in February with three episodes releasing during the month. It was great to hear Matt Walker and Jess Rutland returning and cover a variety of topics, including:

  •    💯   100 Game Dev Interviews - Having conducted over 100 interviews, Tom is on hand to answer burning questions such as ‘do I need a portfolio?’ and ‘what should I wear?’, as well as suggest what you in turn can ask your prospective employers.

  •     ⚔  The RPG Renaissance - RPG enthusiasts Peter Willington and Lucy Cook join hosts Matt, Jess and Tom for this episode. They contemplate the idea of an RPG renaissance, that RPGs and TTRPGs are stronger and more varied than ever, and that now is the perfect time to invest in the wealth of joy and fun that RPGs have to offer.

  •    🧠 The Psychology of Video Games - Today we step into the Psychology of creating a video game, in a whistle stop tour led by our resident neuroscientist, Jess. They describe the psychology behind art, music and colour within videogames, and why gaming can be so important for our mental health.

Give them a listen wherever you get your podcasts from!

March

March saw us announcing 🚀 Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life, which is the sequel to 2020’s Mars Horizon. Lead your space agency in The Search for Life in this authentic strategy simulation game that will see you going to Mars and beyond, leading the way in the future of space exploration.

Developed by Auroch Digital and published by Secret Mode, we are partnering with ESA to make Mars Horizon 2 another great authentic game (but you can read about this in August’s section)
Wishlist on Steam now!

This month also saw the return of 🎲 Digital Tabletop Fest on Steam with Blood & Dice. This was the third Digital Tabletop Fest we have been involved with on Steam, after its debut in 2020 and the RPG Edition in 2021. This year’s event was the first we’ve ran on our own.

DTFest: Blood & Dice celebrated a variety of projects combining the love of physical tabletop games and digital gaming, and this year’s event had a focus on versus, fantasy, horror, and war games.

To coincide with the launch of Digital Tabletop Fest: Blood & Dice, we also started a Twitter account dedicated to promoting Steam events across the platform, @SteamFestivals. Give the account a follow to stay up to date on all things relating to Steam events and sales!

We also released three further episodes of the Auroch Digital Podcast, which looked at:

  •  💬 A Port and Publish Roundtable - We gather colleagues Hannah Corcoran, Freddie Jones, Toby Draper and Aaron Parsons together to share their experiences with one of our core pillars of work at Auroch Digital – game porting and publishing.

  •  🎧 Game Audio Collaboration - Resident Audio Designer and impeccable podcast host Matthew Walker leads this episode, revealing the secrets behind the game audio design pipeline and Brewmaster’s perfect pour.

  •   👺 Retro Warhammer - Matt and Tomas peek back into the past of Warhammer – the origins, the evolution, and its impact on tabletop gaming as we know it.

April

The first of two blogs released in April looks at ‘Remote Working in the Games Industry’ and how we operate at Auroch Digital as a remote-first studio. We employ people from all over the UK and further afield, too!

The second blog of April looks at ‘How Auroch Digital deals with Stress’, where we look at a variety of ways to unwind. There are a LOT of animals involved in this blog, so if you’re a fan of dogs, cats, or rabbits, then this is the blog for you!

April also featured Auroch’s first Tabletop Day at the office for 2023! We have a lot of boardgame fans, tabletop fans, and people who love painting minis at our studio - we are sure this love of these games comes across in what we do.

We host tabletop days at the office every so often for staff who are in or around Bristol to meet up and play a variety of tabletop games together, paint miniatures, or just chat in-person. It’s a lovely time and a great reminder of what we do what we do! 😊

May

May saw the release of the first-person boomer shooter Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun. It’s a title we first announced in June 2022 and we were delighted to see it released on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox!

What we were also delighted with was how much the Warhammer and gaming community enjoyed the title and how well-received the game was by critics. We can’t thank everyone enough who played the game and shared their thoughts on it as we recently passed 8,000 Steam reviews! 🥳 If you’ve played Boltgun please leave us a review, it helps us a lot!

In addition to celebrating our latest release, we were also celebrating two Aurochs on their nominations for Develop Star Awards. Social & Community Manager, Ladell Smith, and Associate Producer, Hannah Corcoran, were nominated for the Diversity Star and Tomorrow’s Star awards respectively. A great well done to both Ladell and Hannah! 👏🏻

June

June was a month for the Auroch team to either get on the road to Sheffield or tune into streams for Sumo Developer Conference, which is run by our parent company, Sumo Group. There were plenty of talks in various areas of game development, presentations on personal progression, and it provided a great opportunity to meet up with colleagues you don’t often get to see.

As it was also Sumo’s 20th anniversary, they also hosted an outdoor festival, SumoFest, which featured live music, food, and plenty of open spaces to unwind after the previous two days at SDC. It was a lot of fun and we loved spending time with our colleagues from near and far! 🤩

This month saw more Aurochs being finalists for awards, this time for Game Dev Heroes. Congratulations to Joseph Beacham (Art & Animation), Jemima Crow (Marketing), and Ladell Smith (Progression Advocate). You’re all amazing! 🙌🏻

Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator was also a finalist in the Gee! Awards for Informal Learning. Thanks for the shortlist! 😊

July

July saw the launch of our second Steam festival of the year with Simfest! 🔨 This was the second year in a row we had been involved in Simfest, which celebrates simulation games, in all shapes and sizes. We had previously partnered with Steam for the festival, but this time we partnered with Stray Fawn. It was great to work with a variety of developers and publishers to showcase existing simulation games and look forward to the future of the genre.

The games industry has a higher percentage of people who are neurodiverse than the general UK population. Associate Producer, Hannah Corcoran, wrote a blog which provides tips on ‘How to Support Your Neurodiverse Team Within the Games Industry’, which you can read here.

August

During Gamescom, we announced that we would be, once again, partnering with the European Space Agency (ESA) for Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life. This partnership follows on from our successful collaboration on the first Mars Horizon, where ESA staff provided valuable insight into the planning and operation of missions to Mars, and ESA itself was a playable agency within the game. We are delighted to be working with ESA again to create an authentic and amazing game.

To read more on this, check out this blog.

For the second year in a row, we participated in Tough Mudder, raising money for the Grand Appeal. We managed to smash our goal of £1,000 by reaching £1,284! 🥳 A huge thanks to everyone who donated and well done to all the Aurochs who participated.

August was also another month where Aurochs were recognised for their great work. This time it was for the Women in Tech Excellence Awards. Senior Programmer, Daniela Policarpo, was nominated in the Innovator, Engineer, and Role Model category, while Isobel McNeany was a finalist in the Rising Star category. Incredible stuff! 🙌🏻

September

Auroch Digital turned 13 in September! 🎂 To celebrate, we created a blog looking back at our previous 13 years and everything we’ve achieved and learned, which you can read here.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun received a physical release this month on Nintendo Switch. If you’re interested in having Malum Caedo’s adventure on your shelf, you can pick up a physical version here.

Auroch’s Operations Director, Nina Adams, was appointed to the Ukie board. Nina joins six other new members on the board of the UK’s games industry trade body. Congratulations, Nina! 👏🏻

October

This month, we announced we are sailing the seas with Rare and are creating some hearty cosmetics for Sea of Thieves that will be premiered in Season Ten. 

Working alongside Rare, a studio that has been making games for well over three decades, is such a fantastic opportunity not just for Auroch as a studio, but for all our developers who are now able to contribute to their legacy. Sea of Thieves is such a groundbreaking and delightful game, it is our honour to batten down the hatches alongside Rare to bring even more cosmetic goodies to the game. We can’t wait for you to see what we’ve created! You can read more on this collaboration here.

Also in October, we were delighted to be finalists in four TIGA Award categories! They were:

November

This month we did a few talks at events in the industry! 📣
The studio’s Operations Director, Nina Adams, presented a talk at the Bristol Games Hub’s Anti-Social event looking at the process, opportunities and pitfalls of signing a contract with a publisher. 📝

Two team members took part in talks at the Women in Games Expo. Jemima Crow, our Marketing & Comms Director, was part of the "Moving Sideways: How Transferrable Skills Can Kickstart Your Games Career" panel and Victoria Mackenzie, one of our producers, took part in a panel called "Permission To Play" discussing how different playstyles/games/genres are viewed and why.

November also saw the release of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun onto the Epic Games Store. Users of the store will now be able to play as Malum Caedo and take down those heretics! 🔫

Boltgun was also the subject of an article on Time Extension, where the history and references for the game’s soundtrack were discussed. 🎵
Rounding off our Warhammer-related content for the month, our Lead Quality Assurance Manager, Dave Evans, discussed their passion for all-things Warhammer, including ways to get involved and what they enjoy most about it. Check it out on our blog! 👀

December

Even as we are heading towards the end of 2023, we are still hard at work on titles such as Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life and others which are unannounced, as of yet… 👀

2023 has been a stellar year for Auroch Digital and it’s one we’re extremely proud of. Thank you for checking out what we’ve been involved with this year. 💜

2024 is already shaping up to be an incredible year and we can’t wait to let you all know what we’ve got coming up in the future!

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

The Lore of Auroch Digital – how Warhammer shaped our game studio

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The Lore of Auroch Digital – how Warhammer shaped our game studio

On the heels of the release of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, Auroch Digital shares its Warhammer journey to now plus tips on how you can get started! 

Read More
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Auroch are setting sail with Sea of Thieves

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Grab a grog and take a seat, we’ve got an exciting Work For Hire project to share with you all.  

We’re sailing the seas with Rare and are creating some hearty cosmetics for Sea of Thieves that will be premiering in Season Ten.  

We’ll also be sure to update our Sea of Thieves Work For Hire section regularly when new content is dropped. 

Working alongside Rare, a studio that has been making games for well over three decades, is such a fantastic opportunity not just for Auroch as a studio, but for all our developers who are now able to contribute to their legacy. Sea of Thieves is such a groundbreaking and delightful game, it is our honour to batten down the hatches alongside Rare to bring even more cosmetic goodies to the game. We can’t wait for you to see what we’ve created! 

"Rare are, with good reason, one of the greats of the video games industry. So, when the opportunity arose for us to work with such an illustrious partner and on such an iconic game, Sea of Thieves, we leapt at the chance! Lots of the Auroch team, myself included, were fans of the game anyway so getting to work on the title is a huge honour for us. We're all super-focused on adding to the player experience and bringing a bit of the Bristol (where our office is based) spirit to the hearty work. Bristol in the 16th Century was a bit of a centre for piracy, with famous figures such as Blackbeard hailing from our home port."  

- Tomas Rawlings, Studio Director, Auroch Digital

We’ll be sure to share with you whenever some new content splashes into the world of Sea of Thieves across our socials and on our Work for Hire section. And if you’re a developer, you can check out our page on the work we’re doing for Rare here and get in touch if you’d like to hire us for any co-development collaboration. 

"We’re delighted to be working with the fine folks at Auroch on Sea of Thieves cosmetics. They’re already showing such an understanding of and commitment to the spirit of Sea of Thieves, and we can’t wait for players to get some of these exciting new items in their hands! Cosmetics play such an important part in Sea of Thieves, with our players wearing the stories of their pirates on their sleeves – so it was critical we partnered with a team who really understood that, and could bring their talent, experience and quality to the table." 

- Louise Roberts, Pirate Emporium Producer, Rare 

 
 

About Sea of Thieves 

A pirate-themed shared-world adventure game, Sea of Thieves is available now on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox One, Windows 10/11 PC and Steam, and optimised for Xbox Series X|S. It offers an unforgettable pirate experience, packed to the seams with sailing and exploring, fighting and plundering, riddle solving and treasure hunting – everything you need to live the pirate life you've always dreamed about. You have complete freedom to approach the world, and other players, however you choose. 

Constantly supported with new, free content, Sea of Thieves is a Play Anywhere title and offers cross play between Xbox One and Windows 10/11 PC players. 

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

It’s Auroch Digital’s Birthday - We are 13 years old! 🍰

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Auroch Digital Turns 13 years old!🎈

It just seemed like yesterday when we turned ten and were excited over the launch of Mars Horizon and now, we are talking about Mars Horizon 2! Times flies when you are having fun! 

In the past three years, as the world changed, we adapted to the times too. The studio changed to remote first, we’ve massively grown in size, and we were acquired by Sumo Group which has helped us go from strength to strength! 

Keep reading to hear more about what we’ve been up to since our humble beginnings, all the way to now, our 13th birthday. We are also holding a brilliant Birthday Giveaway to celebrate so make sure to enter, details on how towards the end of this blog! 

2010 - 2020 – The early years 🌱 

Aurochs hard at work in the office - 2017

We were founded in 2010, at the time our studio was only two people, Tomas and Debbie Rawlings, and our studio was based out of their home.

We had big dreams, and we started GameTheNews to help bring current news and issues into gaming spaces and create a new way for people to take in world events. We were also a co-founding member of Bristol Games Hub, started to to nurture gamedev talent locally. 

We dabbled in mobile games, then started working on porting mobile onto steam and even made a game with the BBC!  

From the very beginning, we always related our games back to the real world. This can be seen in our first gaming projects through GameTheNews right up to one of our recent games, for example Mars Horizon 2: The Search for life and Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator.

One of the first group photos of the team, visiting Bristol Aquarium to celebrate the launch of megaquarium - 2019

Our small studio slowly kept growing and we kept making games. We moved into an office finally, and then moved offices again as we grew. We also branched out into card games too, as well as making digital games across various platforms.

In 2019, we delved into realm of console porting with Megaquarium. 🐠 Once we started porting, we karp-ed it going! We now do porting work as part of our ‘work for hire’. 

At this point, the team had grown so much, we outgrew our first proper office and we relocated to a slightly bigger one just as lockdown happened. We became a remote studio during the pandemic, thinking it would only be temporary.

We rounded off 2020 with our very first Steam Festival – Digital Tabletop Fest, and we’ve gone on to host many more since then! Get more details on our 2020 in our lovely 2020 round up blog! 🔐 

moooove on over, it’s Auroch Digital’s new logo coming through

2021 – Auroch Digital gets a new look ✨

We started off the year with not one but TWO free Mars Horizon updates while also announcing Brewmaster. 

Summer came and we ported The Colonists over onto consoles (we love those robots) and changed our logo to the amazing Auroch you know and love today.  

In the last part of the year, Auroch Digital was acquired by Sumo Group, who we have an amazing relationship with. By this point our studio had grown to 48 people, and joining Sumo Group allowed our studio to go from strength to strength. We’ve enjoyed having a whole host of talented and experienced colleagues to work with and learn from, from across the Sumo group studios. You can see below what Sumo Group’s CEO Carl Cavers had to say about the acquistition:

“I’m delighted to welcome Tomas and the Auroch Digital team to the Group. Given our increasing focus on Own-IP, we are particularly excited by Auroch Digital’s pipeline of original IP. So, while this is a relatively small acquisition, it is a highly significant one for us strategically.”
— Carl Cavers, CEO of Sumo Group

Steam digita tabletop fest 2021: RPG Edition - 2021

How did we finish of such momentous year? By hosting the second edition of our amazing Steam Digital Tabletop Festival that ran in October, this time with a special focus on Role-Playing games.

Our Steam Festivals are a great way for us to connect and work with other developers who specialist in genres and games that we do. We love showcasing all the best and most exciting games in this space, not only from us but from many other talented developers, studios, and publishers.

The end of year blog for 2021 goes into more detail about everything we got up to! 🌈 

2022 – We keep getting bigger and better 💪🏾

If you asked us to describe 2022 in one word, it would be: sensational 🤩

There was so much happening we pulled it into an easy to digest bullet point list:

🚀 Mars Horizon got a new update  
🐠 Megaquarium DLC Freshwater Frenzy went out on consoles  
💙 We hosted our first SimFest on Steam  
🍺 Brewmaster had a ton of partnerships 
💥We announced Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun - this is steam page but I move it to our page 
🏅 We completed Tough Mudder as a herd and raised over £3,500 for Sunflower Ward at Bristol Children’s hospital. 
🍻 We launched Brewmaster on PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch! 

2022 was also the year we decided to go full remote as a studio. We had become a remote studio due to the pandemic, but we thought this might be a temporary change. It turns out we can still make amazing games from the comfort of our own homes. All the staff were surveyed about their preference for where they work, and we loved working from home, so it was decided that we would become a remote first studio. We still have an office where we have meetings and some staff choose to work from there, but most of our staff do their best work from home and we support that.

Want more details on this bumper year? Check out our round up of 2022 blog to learn more about what we got up to. 🥰 

2023 – We are excited for the future 🚀

Our little studio has grown since it’s humble beginnings, the Auroch Digital herd is now around 130 people strong! We remained a remote first studio as this allowed us to hire amazing talent from around the world, but it does mean that some of our staff had only ever seen each other through a computer screen. One wild thought came to mind which was, why not have an Auroch Digital conference gathering everyone from near and far together?   

From this, Moocon was born. This was an internal conference for all Auroch Digital employees to spend time together, learn from each other, do game jams, and have fun together in person. See our Moocon round up video here. We got to share ideas, inspiration, and make even stronger connections with each other. This is what Nina, our Operations Director, had to say about Moocon:

“It’s the first time we’ve all been together, over 100 of us. We’ve got people from India, we’ve got people from Brazil, we’ve got people from all over the country all joined together to actually meet in person, see each other, recognise each other for the first time and collaborate and see how we can move forward and keep making games brilliantly.”
— Nina Adams, Operations Director

However, it wasn’t just other Auroch Digital herd members we wanted to spend more time with, we wanted to get to know our amazing Sumo Group colleagues better too! So shortly after Moocon we all travelled up to Sheffield for SDC, Sumo Developer Conference, which just happened to coincide with Sumo’s 20th anniversary!  

We gave talks, attended work shops, networked, partied but most importantly, connected with others from Sumo Group. Being part of a big collection of gaming studios is amazing as we can share all our knowledge and experience from across the breadth of projects we’ve all worked on, and SDC was the perfect place to do this. We can’t wait for SDC 2024! 

Now during all this, we snuck in a long-awaited announcement from the community, Mars Horizon 2: The search for Life 🌌 

Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life is an authentic space management game where you take on the role of the head of a space agency on your mission to Search for Life. So far we’ve announced that we are Partnering with ESA on the game and also that we are working with Professor Konstantin Batygin, but we have loads more exciting things in store for our Mars Horizon sequel. Keep up to date on all things Mars Horizon 2 by following our newsletter, socials and of course our discord! 

We kept blasting forward in 2023 and we released Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun our first boomer shooter. In glorious boomer shooter style, unleash your devastating Space Marine arsenal as you blast through an explosion of sprites, pixels and blood. Run, jump and charge across huge levels to shoot, shred and slice the worst heretics across the galaxy! This game is a real labour of love from our team, enjoy our launch trailer here.

2023 ain’t over yet 

Even though the leaves are changing colour and its nearly time for clocks to change too, we still have a lot more to do. So far this year we have also; 

⏰ Ported Wobbledogs onto consoles 
⏰ Run Digital Tabletop Fest 3, Blood and Dice 
⏰ Run Simfest alongside Stray Fawn Studio 
⏰ Raised even more money for the Sunflower ward by completing Tough Mudder again

Some of the Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun team hold up the key art - 2023

Award Season 🏆 

We don’t like to brag but we are a pretty great studio.  Throughout these 13 years we have got some amazing awards and nominations, and we can’t wait to see what other awards we will achieve together.  

🏆 2014 GI Biz Innovation Award
🏆 2014 Media Innovation Award 
🏆 2017 best place to work in tech SPARKies  
🏆 2019 Nominated for a TIGA award  
🏆 2020 Grads in games  
🏆 2021 2 x Gee Awards for Mars Horizon
🏆 2021 Famistu Gold medal  
🏆 2023 Nominated for 4 Tiga awards 

The people of Auroch Digital 🎠 

One thing we value above all is our people here at Auroch Digital. We love to empower people to use their voice to nurture the next generation of games developers. We could talk for HOURS about this, but we will just link some of the amazing talks, panels, blogs we have done over the years: 📚 

Talks and panels 👀 

Tomas Rawlings giving a talk on sustainability

Blogs, articles, and interviews 📚 

Self care and pets: how auroch digital deals with stress

We also do a bunch of talks in schools and higher education facilities, as well as in person talks at Bristol Unity meet ups and Bristol Unreal meet ups for other developers. Make sure to follow us on socials to see when we are attending these and come by to listen. 

The Auroch Digital podcast 🎤 

Lastly Don’t forget our podcasts which you can find here, which we are 8 seasons deep and have no plans of stopping. We do episodes on all sorts of interesting topics in and around game development, plus plenty of advice on how to get into the industry.  

Auroch Digital’s 13th Birthday giveaway – How to enter! 

Boltgun key art with auroch logo with party streamer and party hat on top. The text says Auroch digital Birthfay Giveaway and the games listed below

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun key art with auroch logo with party streamer and party hat on top. The text says Auroch digital Birthfay Giveaway and the games listed below

Now the bit you have been waiting for, the giveaway! 🎉

To celebrate the fact that our studio is now old enough to have it’s own Steam account, we are doing a giveaway to our loyal Aurochnauts. Enter our giveaway and you could win a digital bundle of a bunch of Auroch Digital games from over the years. 

The Auroch Digital Birthday Bundle prize includes: 

How to enter 

But how do you enter this awesome Auroch Digital birthday giveaway? 🥳 All you need to do is sign up to our official Auroch Digital newsletter. We will be randomly selecting one lucky person, who is signed up to receive our monthly Auroch Digital newsletter, to win the Auroch Digital Birthday Bundle prize as a thank you for supporting us.  

What is the Auroch Digital Newsletter about? 

The Auroch Digital Newsletter comes out around the end of each month and is full of all the latest news about our studio including new game announcements, launches, beta and alpha invites, giveaways, jobs at the studio, as well as loads more exciting news. So by signing up you’ll get to stay up to date with all of our great goings, as well as be in with a chance to win the Auroch Digital Birthday Bundle prize. 

Ts and Cs 

The giveaway closes on 26th October at Midnight so make sure to sign up before then to be in with a chance to win. Please see here the giveaway terms and conditions. You can see the Auroch Digital Privacy Policy here for more info: Auroch Digital Privacy Policy 

The Auroch Digital cow looking happy

🧡Thank you for supporting
Auroch Digital! 🧡

Thank you for supporting our studio through our games, socials, Discord, newsletters, or however else you interact with us. We are working on some amazing announced, and unannounced, games that we know you will absolutely love!

Make sure to stick with us for 2024 to see what we get up to next! 

Timeline Of The Company ⌛

Oh you thought we were done? Me too…

Here is a timeline of all our major events (that we can publicly say) so that you can see how a small indie company like us grows 🌱

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

We’re partnering with ESA for Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life!

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Hello Aurochnauts! We have yet another exciting partnership to announce to you all.

As you may have seen, the European Space Agency (ESA) are at Gamescom this year, which seems like a fitting time to let you all know that we are partnering with them once more for Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life! 

This partnership follows on from our successful collaboration on the first Mars Horizon, where ESA staff provided valuable insight into the planning and operation of missions to Mars, and ESA itself was a playable agency within the game. Players can once again take the reins of ESA within Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life, and ESA's expertise will be used to ensure that all projections into the future involving mankind’s search for extra-terrestrial life are based on likely scientific scenarios and achievable technological progress. 

"It is hard to fully encapsulate the value that working with the European Space Agency brings to us as game developers; there is the expert knowledge, there is the breadth of experience, but also just the general all-round excitement of space exploration that radiates from ESA staff we interact with!" said Dr Tomas Rawlings, Studio Director at Auroch Digital. "We're doing our best to capture all this to make so making what we offer players ever more authentic to our species' ongoing journey to understand our solar system and beyond." 

The European Space Agency is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.  

ESA’s job is to draw up the European space programme and carry it through. ESA's programmes are designed to find out more about Earth, its immediate space environment, our Solar System and the Universe, as well as to develop satellite-based technologies and services, and to promote European industries. ESA also works closely with space organisations outside Europe. 

You can see how we worked with ESA on Mars Horizon here: 

 > Earlier this year we announced our partnership with Professor Konstantin Batygin, which you can read more about here! 

We are going to be working with ESA to make sure we can bring authenticity and real-world science into our sequel to Mars Horizon. As the sequel focuses on The Search for Life, we are excited to talk to them about biosignature detection, sample return, and much more. Their partnership ensures that we can create an authentic game in Mars Horizon 2, as we did with the first! 

Sign up to our Newsletter to be the first to hear about Alphas, Betas, and other news.  

Where to find ESA: 

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.

Steam Festival Simfest 2023 Begins Today!

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We, alongside our partners at Stray Fawn Studio, are thrilled to announce that Simfest is returning to Steam and is now live on the Steam Store. From 6pm BST today (July 20th) through 6pm BST on July 24th, we will be celebrating the widely varied simulation genre through discounts, demos, and special announcements from several participating titles.

What can you expect from Simfest 2023?

💯 Over 100 titles from real-life sims to building, resource management, driving, farming sims, and everything in between

📣 Announcements from titles such as Human: Fall Flat, The Tenants, Cook, Serve, Delicious, and more!

💸 Discounts for many participating games

🎮 Demos to sample a host of amazing titles

👀 An opportunity to see what’s next in simulation games

➕ And much more!

Simfest debuted in 2022 with Hobby Edition, where we partnered with Steam to run the event. Last year’s event featured a variety of talks and panels, whereas this year’s festival will be focused on highlighting released and upcoming simulation games via the Steam Store. Simfest 2023 is the first time Auroch Digital and Stray Fawn Studio have partnered for an event, having recently ran Digital Tabletop Fest 3: Blood & Dice and Earth Appreciation Festival respectively.

Simfest 2023 takes place on Steam from today (July 20th) through the 24th. The festival is now live, so please check it out on Steam now! For more information, follow @SteamFestivals, @AurochDigital, and @StrayFawnStudio.

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Auroch Digital

Marketing and Community Managment for Auroch Digital in Bristol, UK.