Moon Beast Productions recently landed a solid $4.5 million in seed funding, a clear signal of confidence in their future endeavors. Spearheading this investment was 1AM Gaming, with further backing from 1UP Ventures, The Mini Fund, Overwolf, Versus Ventures, along with other angel investors. It’s quite the endorsement for this budding studio.
The funds are earmarked for the creation of a groundbreaking action RPG. As the company puts it, they are set to “challenge conventional design paradigms.” This ambition echoes the innovative spirit the studio was founded upon. Moon Beast came into existence in March 2022, thanks to two seasoned veterans from the Diablo 2 team, Peter Hu and Phil Shenk. The talent pool deepened even further when Diablo 2 co-creator, Erich Schaefer, joined them the following year as their chief creative officer.
“With the current tough landscape for funding, we’re incredibly grateful to have investors who truly get our vision,” noted Hu, the president and a co-founder. “Our strategy has always leaned towards working smarter—not just harder. We’re focusing on building versatile, data-driven systems that allow us to speed up our development process, creating more with fewer resources.”
Echoing this sentiment, Shenk chimed in: “We’ve never settled for just going with the flow. Throughout our careers, we’ve frequently pushed to redefine what gaming genres can be. Right from the inception of the action RPG genre with Diablo and Diablo 2, we’ve stayed at the forefront. Our journey continued through projects like Hellgate: London, Torchlight, and Marvel Heroes Online, always striving to broaden what players anticipate from the genre.”
