Apogee Entertainment is a name that will be familiar to any old-school PC gamers. Founded in 1987, the plucky publisher would go on to be responsible for landmark FPS titles such as Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem 3D, just to name a few. It eventually was folded into 3D Realms, which still exists to this day, but times have changed. Instead of simply touting around the Apogee name for brand recognition, original company founder Scott Miller wants to do more.
That's why today, Miller and executive Terry Nagy (a long-time employee at the company) have announced a relaunch of the brand with a new initiative: promote indie games. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Miller said, "We decided here in the last year to resurrect and relaunch Apogee, to kind of reclaim our title as the original indie publisher. We're working with indie developers again and cherry-picking what we think are the diamonds in the rough. And there are a lot of diamonds out there."
Apogee is looking to provide indie developers with funds, assistance in porting games, marketing, localization, and bug testing should they decide to sign on. As for how they'll find interesting games to represent, Miller isn't worried. Along with the brand recognition that comes from the Apogee name, Miller said, "There are so many indie projects out there now I think there are more than enough to go around for the publishers who are dealing in this market."
Currently, Apogee has four games signed to its publishing arm. Survival game Residual is the first to be publically announced and is set to release sometime in the fall of 2021. A procedurally generated sidescroller, Miller has stated that this new title will not be a blueprint for the types of games Apogee releases. Miller wants the company to cater to various genres at the same time.
Conversely, Apogee won't be exploding in size with this new direction. The ambitions for the company are to have around eight to 10 games at any given time. "That way the upper management like myself can give each project its due in terms of attention," Miller explained. "We want to stay pretty flat and personal as a company." That's certainly not a bad thing.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz