4A Games

History

Foundation

4A Games was founded by former developers from GSC Game World: Andrew Prokhorov, Oles Shyshkovtsov, and Alexander Maximchuk; they, together with Sergei Karmalsky, formed the core team of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, which was in development at GSC in the early and mid-2000s. Prokhorov had disliked that Sergiy Grygorovych, the chief executive officer (CEO) of GSC, prioritized money over his employees, withholding royalties for games the company had produced. The situation came to a high point when the two fell out over wages in 2006, leading Prokhorov and two of the company's lead programmers—Shyshkovtsov and Maximchuk—to leave the company and found a new studio, 4A Games, with the intention to treat its employees better than Grygorovych did.

''Metro'' series

The company's first game was Metro 2033, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky that was announced in 2009. The game was released in March 2010 on the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows to generally favorable reviews.

Following their initial success, 4A Games began work on the sequel, Metro: Last Light, which was announced during the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo convention. The game faced several issues during its production, whose release date was delayed from 2012 to 2013. The most significant setback for the company occurred in January 2013, when the game's publisher, THQ, closed down after declaring bankruptcy and auctioning off its intellectual properties. The publishing rights to the Metro 2033 franchise, including the sequel, were sold to Koch Media for $5.8 million on 22 January, allowing the company to finish making the game. Metro: Last Light was finally released on 14 May 2013, and was published by Koch Media's video game label, Deep Silver.

On 30 March 2014, a remastered re-release of both Metro titles, under the name Metro Redux, was leaked, and confirmed the day after. The compilation was released in August 2014 for eighth-generation platforms. In 2017, the company released a virtual reality game, Arktika.1.

During the 2017 E3 convention, at the Microsoft press conference on 11 June 2017, a new game, Metro Exodus, was announced for a 2018 release. Gameplay was shown to both announce the game and act as a graphical showcase for Microsoft's native 4K-focused update to the Xbox One hardware, Xbox One X. The game was released in 2019.

Expansion

On 12 May 2014, amidst the Russo-Ukrainian war, 4A Games announced that they were to expand by opening a new studio in and moving their headquarters to Sliema, Malta to allow for easier operations inside the European Union. At the same time, the Kyiv studio became separately owned and continued to operate for Eastern European operations. It kept the 4A Games name, operating as 4A Games Ukraine until February 2025, when it was rebranded as Reburn, while the original company continued to operate as 4A Games Limited. After the release of the Metro Exodus DLCs, 4A Games Limited opened a second studio in Kyiv.

4A Games Limited was acquired by Saber Interactive under the Embracer Group for approximately in August 2020. The publisher of the Metro series, Deep Silver, was already a part of the Embracer Group via Koch Media, making the acquisition a "sensible one" for both groups.

Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Saber Interactive stated that all employees at 4A's Kyiv studio can relocate to other Saber-owned companies abroad if they choose to. Like other Ukrainian video game studios, it became involved in the campaign to organize funds and support for Ukraine.

In March 2024, Saber Interactive was sold to Beacon Interactive, a new company from Saber co-founder Matthew Karch. Many of the studios under Saber, including 4A Games, were not included in the sale. Embracer will retain the rights to the Metro series through its Plaion subsidiary.

Technology

Oles Shishkovtsov and Oleksandr Maksimchuk split from the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R because that "its inherent inability to be multi-threaded, the weak and error-prone networking model, and simply awful resource and memory management which prohibited any kind of streaming or simply keeping the working set small enough for 'next-gen' consoles" along with its "terrible text-based scripting", which he explained led to the delays in the original game.

There have been accusations that the 4A Engine is a modified version of the X-Ray engine used in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series, instead of an original development. 4A denied the accusations. Shishkovtsov also noted that porting the original engine to consoles would have proved extremely difficult.

Games developed

References

References

1. (25 August 2021). "Embracer Group Annual Report & Sustainability Report 2020 / 2021". [[Embracer Group]].
2. (28 February 2025). "4A Games Studio Update".
3. Wordsworth, Rich. (28 January 2014). "Games from the Real-World Post-Apocalypse".
4. Hall, Charlie. (8 September 2013). "Stalker fallout: Polygon traces the exodus from Kiev's legendary GSC Game World".
5. Crecente, Brian. (22 October 2009). "Metro 2033 Shooter Brings Apocalypse to Moscow".
6. "Metro 2033 Critic Reviews for PC".
7. Williamson, Steven. (6 June 2011). "E3 2011: Metro: Last Light announcement trailer".
8. Bradford, Matt. (3 February 2012). "THQ delays Metro: Last Light, seeks help with Warhammer 40K MMO".
9. Corriea, Alexa Ray. (23 January 2013). "Koch Media offers $22.3M for Volition and $5.8M for 4A Games' Metro franchise in THQ auction".
10. Karmali, Luke. (1 March 2013). "Metro: Last Light Release Date Announced".
11. McWhertor, Michael. (22 May 2014). "Metro 2033 and Last Light get remastered Redux on PS4, Xbox One and PC this summer".
12. Chalk, Andy. (6 October 2016). "Metro 2033 developer announces Arktika.1, an Oculus Touch-exclusive FPS".
13. Dornbush, Jonathon. (11 June 2017). "E3 2017: Metro Exodus Announced for 2018".
14. Donnelly, Joe. (16 May 2018). "Metro Exodus delayed to 2019". PC Gamer.
15. Hall, Charlie. (20 August 2014). "Ukraine's 4A Games lands in Malta: 'We are not betrayers'".
16. (2025-02-27). "Metro 2033 dev pulls a reverse Fight Club twist: It's been two companies this whole time and one of them is changing its name and making a sci-fi shooter in a dystopian South America". PC Gamer.
17. (2025-02-28). "4A GAMES STUDIO UPDATE".
18. Kerr, Chris. (13 August 2020). "THQ parent company Embracer has purchased Metro dev 4A Games and others".
19. "Embracer Group Acquires 4A Games". [[Embracer Group]].
20. "Tech CEO flies workers out of Ukraine as fear of invasion looms".
21. "I pray everyone in Ukraine stays safe during this rough time. "4A and the other Saber-owned studios with presences in Kyiv all have the option of working in one of our other locations abroad if they choose to." --Saber Interactive $EMBRAC representative".
22. "Inwazja Rosji na Ukrainę - cios w gamingowe serce Europy?".
23. Yin-Poole, Wesley. (2024-03-14). "Saber Interactive Splits From Embracer, Taking 38 Video Game Projects With It".
24. (February 20, 2010). "Metrospective: 4A Games vs. Digital Foundry".
25. (February 18, 2010). "4A Games dismisses Metro 2033 engine rumours".