The recently revealed Den of Wolves is a new co-op heist game from developer 10 Chambers, the creative minds behind GTFO and the Payday series. Fans of their work can look forward to their new high tech twist to the tactical, team-focused sub-genre.
The upcoming game is set in a cyberpunk metropolis, with the economy run by powerful corporate overlords. The player’s job is to take on gig assignments in the murky underbelly of Midway City.
Narrative director and music composer Simon Viklund spoke to us on the making of Den of Wolves, and how GTFO‘s success and previous work in the heist genre helped shape this new project.
Heist, heist baby
“The heist is a cool concept, and it’s a fantastic set-up for a co-op game,” said Viklund. “The idea of having a plan, executing a plan, and being this criminal entrepreneur makes sense for a game; it offers a particular type of power fantasy.
“It’s an escapism. We’re adding the sci-fi element with Den of Wolves, which greatly opens it up. It makes the heist more interesting with the type of enemies, tools, weapons, and general game mechanics you can handle.”
With Den of Wolves, players take control of a crew of freelancers who take on work for the corporations that control Midway City set in 2097. Naturally, their work operates outside the boundaries of the law.
These missions involve corporate espionage, assassinations, and acquiring secret tech that can potentially change the dynamics of power in Midway City. The crew of operatives has specific load-outs and gear, and players will have to work together to leverage their tools and plan of attack to pull off the heists.
On the shoulders of giants
After their previous work, 10 Chambers sought to create a new type of heist game that leveraged the best aspects of what came before—but with a particular focus on dynamic action and approachable team-based gameplay.
“We have a lot of confidence in our ability to experiment and try new things. We did much of that working on GTFO, and our creative process can be very chaotic,” added Viklund. “With Den of Wolves, we wanted to focus on the ebb and flow of the action and that you can go back into stealth again during the heists—which we did with GTFO. We want to embrace and expand upon it.”
“We learned how we want to tackle early access,” he continued. “We learned many different aspects of game development and how we experiment with building the game and growing a brand, and that’s something we’re going to continue and evolve.”
Expansion phase
Den of Wolves is beginning a new phase for the team, moving further into the genre with an increasingly ambitious vision that embraces more significant ideas and a bolder story about corporate espionage. This requires an expanded team to create Midway City and its evolving story that will continue to develop in post-launch updates.
“We’re laying the groundwork here to create a location and world that has a history and sets the stage for so many potential stories of intrigue that lean into science fiction. Working on this game has just opened up the ceiling for us, and we can go crazy with this game.
“It’s been so fun to develop, and we’re hoping that the game becomes popular with fans so that we can keep updating it and adding new storylines to flesh out this world further,” said the developer.
“We just like making games that are fun to play during development, which gets even more fun when more people join in. There’s a human factor involved with these types of games, whether a versus mode or the co-op mode, to see more people join in on the fun. So that’s part of the journey for us as developers, which is exciting.”
Den of Wolves is in active development and will debut in early access for PC and consoles, with additional content planned post-launch.
