Acquiring Supercell's Everdale – a new challenge for Metacore's game development process

By now, the cat’s out of the bag – we’ve acquired Everdale and begun working on the next iteration of Supercell’s cherished IP. While expanding through acquisitions hasn’t been a part of Metacore’s growth strategy, here’s why working on a game like Everdale is an opportunity our team couldn’t turn down.

Metacore’s focus has always been on making the best games for our players, which is why we listen to player feedback almost religiously. Our game development process always starts with our audience – their interests, concerns and the type of entertainment they consume. Most of the time this has very little to do with the type of games they play or mechanics they crave. We form and test various hypotheses that eventually lead us to a storyline and characters around which the game begins to take shape.

With Everdale, the canvas isn’t the least bit blank. On the contrary, there are a variety of the building blocks for a hit game in place, from the game’s vivid world and striking scenery to the strong community that’s formed – and persisted! – around the game. And I think it goes without saying that we wouldn’t expect anything less from a Supercell game.

But here’s the most exciting part: despite the rich world we’re left working with, we’re approaching Everdale as we would any other game project and testing how our development process works on an existing game. Right now, our team is delving into Everdale’s market-fit, forming and testing various hypotheses about why existing audiences love the game, and experimenting with ways to further expand that audience. How objectively will we be able to set and explore new hypotheses, forming our own vision of the game? What will it take to dismantle such a full world and reassemble it into something that could look completely different? In many ways, Everdale is a new kind of test for our game development process.

We can never make any promises on which game projects grow into live games and what form they will take – that’s up to our players to decide. But our hope is to continue strengthening the imaginative world that has already been built, bringing the game to even wider audiences to enjoy.

Read more about the acquisition here: