Building A Stellar System

“It’s very cool to be in big companies, but it’s rare that A: you ship the game and B: that you do the game that you really are passionate about,” developer Ricard Pillosu tells me over a video call. After years of working as AAA developers at other companies (including Crysis developer Crytek), Pillosu and Albert Jane co-founded Epictellers, a new studio where they could make the game they always dreamed of. “I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Pillosu continues. “I love Crysis, I love shooters, but my cup of tea is really CRPGs and RPG games.”

Today, Pillosu’s “cup of tea” is right around the corner. Epictellers is developing Starfinder: Afterlight, a video game adaptation of Paizo’s sci-fi tabletop game. Epictellers hopes the game’s setting will help it stand out from other CRPGs, which have been steadily gaining popularity in recent years, thanks in part to the massive success of Baldur’s Gate 3.