Monument Valley maker Ustwo is now a “PC first” studio

London-based game developer Ustwo is shifting its focus to PC.

This was announced by General Director Maria Sayans. who told Mobilegamer.biz that the company decided to focus on PC, in part after taking note of the “compromises” it had to make as a mobile studio bringing games to other platforms. The CEO also said that PC allows Ustwo to have a “more direct” relationship with its audience. Mobile devices and consoles, on the other hand, are seen as platforms where “reach” is the main advantage.

Ustwo has historically been a mobile-focused studio, but has brought several of its projects to PC, starting with the 2019 Apple Arcade exclusive Assemble with Care, which moved to Windows the following year. Games like Monument Valley, Alba: A Wilderness Adventure, and Desta: Memories Between have since been released on other platforms, including PC.

“What's changed recently is that we've shifted our focus to 'PC first' rather than mobile in our future games,” Sayans said.

“It comes with the realization that there is a ceiling on how much you can do on PC and console when you are perceived as a mobile-first game, and that you make compromises in both product design and go-to-market strategy when mobile is your flagship platform.”

She continued: “In terms of platform, the shift is that we now think of PC as the base on which we can build a more direct relationship with our audience and community, and consoles and mobile as the platforms that will give us reach. So we're not abandoning any platform, just more carefully choosing the best way to build that audience and engage with them over time.

“We have three game teams and they are in different stages of development. When the time is right, we will reveal more about these games.”

Sayans was also asked why Monument Valley 3 left Netflix after just six months on the streaming platform, where it launched as an exclusive. Ustwo's CEO said his departure also “came as a complete surprise” to the company. But leaving Netflix, she said, brought some benefits.

“After years of working with Netflix on Monument Valley 3, the game launched in December 2024 with a strong marketing campaign, and six months later they told us they wanted to take it off the service,” she said. “There were multiple games being taken offline at the same time, so I'm guessing this is due to an evolution in their content strategy and priorities.”

She continued: “Once we learned that the game was going into retirement, we took this as an opportunity to redesign the game's ending and post-launch content in a way that was better suited to a premium product, and quickly shifted our focus to creating a version for the app stores.

“We had to do this very quickly so that it could be implemented in the version we were going to release on console. I'm really proud of how the team took it in their stride, saw an opportunity to make the game better and responded very quickly.”