Space Ape vets launch Offroad Games

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A team of former Space Ape staff has opened a new studio called Offroad Games and taken Chrome Valley Customs and Fastlane: Road to Revenge with it.

Speaking to PocketGamer.biz, Offroad Games CEO Geoffrey Gilles said the developer would focus on car-themed games for mobile, with a twist. 

By taking two titles from Space Ape’s portfolio, the team of 10 (seven full-time and three contractors) is already profitable, and has plans to hire more staff to bring it up to 15 employees initially. Offroad currently does not have funding from Supercell or other investors.

The founding team includes Geoffrey Gilles as CEO, who previously worked as the GM on Chrome Valley Customs and was an original game lead on Beatstar. He’s joined by a team that includes CTO Christopher Jubb, lead game designer Vera Zaitceva, lead artist Hyo Chan and finance director Cameron Simon, among others.

As well as bringing over Chrome Valley Customs and Fastlane: Road to Revenue, the studio is also working on bringing back an old cancelled Space Ape title: Go Race: Super Karts, first released in its earliest form on Android in 2016.

It also aims to develop new car-themed games, too, potentially using IP and assets from its existing portfolio. These could be released as hypercasual titles, with room to extend their mechanics in future.

Cultural values

The studio’s formation comes after Supercell acquired a 100% stake in Space Ape back in November 2024. The latter company was renamed to Supercell London, with a focus on the Finnish developer’s titles. 

The shift led to a number of staff exiting the company, including layoffs. Meanwhile, offshoots like Offroad Games and NextBeat have taken Space Ape titles with them.

Gilles said the options at Supercell were not ones that he wanted to pursue, leading him to explore opening his own studio.

“I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur and there was this opportunity to still operate successful live games,” he said.

He added: “I saw this opportunity to take both games, run the games, and then at the same time rehire some people and then really come up with an inspiring company mission. Values that really speak to me and how I think game development is best done.”

Asked to elaborate more on its approach to new games development, Gilles said he foresees doing things like another games company: Homa Games.

He cited how the publisher builds hypercasual titles, and when it finds a mechanic that proves sticky with players, it builds a hybridcasual version. “I like this structured approach to doing game development,” he said.

On the studio’s cultural values, Gilles said there are three tenets: camaraderie, speed, and being free thinkers.

“Literally the name captures the way we want to think,” he explained. “We want to think off-road.”