The Moscow video game development studio was founded in 2016 by an experienced team - Owlcat employees previously worked, for example, in the Nival studio and participated in the development of such blockbusters as "Allods Online", "Cursed Lands", Heroes of Might and Magic V and Silent Storm.
The first project of the young studio turned out to be based on the Paizo Publishing franchise — Pathfinder (a series of board games similar in rules to Dungeons & Dragons). Funds for the development were attracted from investors, including the holding structure that controlled Owlcat at that time Mail.ru Group — My.com, as well as through crowdfunding. In total, users then donated more than $900,000 to the project. However, as the head of Owlcat Oleg Shpilchevsky told, there was still not enough money to develop a full-fledged game — a trip to investors was inevitable.
The output turned out to be a hit game Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Even the famous game designer Chris Avellon, who participated in the development of the Fallout series, was involved in the development. The heroes' vocabulary alone exceeded a million words. The release took place in the fall of 2018.
Owlcat does not disclose sales data. According to the SteamSpy service, the owners of digital copies of Patfinder: Kingmaker can be from 200,000 to 500,000 users. Together with another project (Dakar 18), Kingmaker helped the publisher Deep Silver to raise $27.6 million in November 2018.
The new Owlcat project is a continuation of the first game. By the time of the announcement , the studio had managed to separate from My.com and move from Moscow to Cyprus. With a "daughter" Mail.ru Group the company has maintained partnerships. My.com I even invested in a new game as a third-party investor. Gem Capital is also among the investors of the project. In total, Owlcat managed to raise $1 million.
