Mode 7 Games

Mode 7 was founded around 2005 by Paul Kilduff-Taylor and Ian Hardingham. They spent two years to develop Determinance, a multiplayer sword fighting game. According to Kilduff-Taylor, the game was a commercial disappointment for them, but their capabilities attracted contract work from clients like ITV, BBC, and Novint Technologies. Their work with Novint had involved a game that was divisive - some thought it was great while others were confused by it. This led the pair to the goal of making a game that was good regardless of how long it would take.[1] They started development of this title while still doing contract work to pay for their bills, and once they felt the single player was in a state good enough for a beta release of their next title, Frozen Synapse in April 2010.[2] After about a year, sales of the beta were sufficient to sustain them allowing them to commit to the title full-time.[1] Frozen Synapse, a turn-based combat strategy simulation game, was released in full by May 2011, received critical praise, and by early 2012, had sold over 300,000 units, with over US$300,000 in direct sales to Mode 7. This allowed Mode 7 to expand the game to other platforms and hire additional staff.[3]

Based on the success of Frozen Synapse, Mode 7 wanted to take the core of that game into their next title, and developed Frozen Endzone, a similar strategy game but based on a sport like American football. The game, which was released in 2015, did not fare as well as Synapse even after a change in name to Frozen Cortex, which Kilduff-Taylor attributed to players thinking it was a sports game rather than a strategy game. Due to this, Mode 7 returned to develop a sequel to Frozen Synapse, Frozen Synapse 2, which was initially planned for released in 2016 but was delayed until 2018.[4]

In 2017, Mode 7 announced they would also support publishing of other indie games, with Smac Games' Tokyo 42[5] and Codebyfire's The Colonists.[6]

In March 2019 Ian Hardingham announced he was leaving the studio to become chief technology officer at Oxford Brain Diagnostics, working on early detection of brain diseases. With his departure, Mode 7 further downsized as they were no longer developing "large-scale indie games in-house", but instead would remain committed to supporting the publishing arm and their third-party studios.[7]

Mode 7 announced in February 2020 they would help publish Ground Shatter Game's Fights in Tight Spaces.[8]