A group of veteran Fall Guys developers have launched Panic Stations, a new developer specializing in “fun, silly and farcical” co-op multiplayer games, with the stated goal of releasing several games every year.
The founding team of Steve Taylor, Dan Hoang, Joe Walsh and Oliver Hindle held senior positions working on the hit Fall Guys at Mediatonic, and the studio was co-founded by fellow founder Paul Croft.
The studio's stated goal is to create “fun, fresh, physics-based co-op games with a sense of humor and release several every year.” The first will be revealed “soon”. The studio's branding is heavily pigeon-themed and includes in-universe trailer And social network.
“I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get the proverbial band back together and make the dumbest games we could think of,” said Walsh, who works as the studio's design director.
“I’m a big fan of the online co-op space and it’s been amazing to see how it has developed over the last few years,” said Paul Croft. “It’s exciting to team up with old friends—we strive to create games that bring immediate joy to players and bring people together.”
Mediatonic was acquired by Epic Games in 2021 following the runaway success of the multiplayer game Fall Guys, which released during the pandemic and found a huge audience at a time when in-person gatherings were severely limited. Studio later suffered significant job losses when Epic cut staff in 2023..
Panic Stations is the first brand new studio to launch as part of Skeleton Crew, a new initiative Croft announced earlier this month. It's described as “a new group of independent game companies bound by shared values of small teams, determination, creativity and kindness” with the ambition to “build and empower great studios like Panic Stations so talented people can do their best work.” The founding teams were Payload, Brightrock and Mythwright, who had previously collaborated on PC releases including TerraTech And Cleaning Kaiju.
Studio currently recruiting for a small number of positions in art, engineering and level design.
