This article was originally published on April 24, 2026 - read the full issue

By Marie Dealessandri

Reading Tove Jansson's Moomins books, you might not expect that this quirky, melancholic universe is a business worth €680 million, with 800 licensees globally, TV shows in 120 countries, and books published in 55 languages. For Moomin Characters creative director James Zambra, it's all part of a concerted drive to keep the legacy alive: "Irrespective of how amazing the body of work is, if you don't introduce it to more people and find new ways to tell those stories, they will eventually be forgotten."

And this is exactly why Hyper Games adapted Tove Jansson's universe for videogames, first with Snufkin: Melody Of Moominvalley in 2024, and now with Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth, out next week. Despite the Norwegian studio operating for 14 years, Snufkin is the title that truly put the team on the map.

"It exceeded our expectations," co-founder and CEO Are Sundnes tells Knowledge. Snufkin's release was a crucial moment for the studio, he recalls, since it was going through a period of financial stress at the time. "It was a bit uncertain: 'Are people actually going to like this?' But it went so well. This time we have a bit more confidence, and things are a bit easier."

At the time of Snufkin's release, Hyper Games had been vocal about wanting to bring the Moomins IP to a wider audience.

"I think we definitely did that, especially in the US," Sundnes says. "The goal is similar [now]: we want to be respectful and make something that we feel that Tove Jansson would have approved of. Of course, we get a lot of help from basing [a game] on a well-known IP, but we also want to make [something] that's not completely dependent on players knowing about it."

Going it alone

Hyper Games is a textbook example of a long-standing studio that maintained its culture and staff across decades: the team working on Moomintroll is essentially the same as the one that made Snufkin, and only one person has left since the studio started in 2012. It's built a faithful community of players, with whom it communicates regularly via its newsletter, Discord, and broader social channels. In short: a small, adaptable studio, with a direct rapport with its community. That's a recipe for success we've reported on time and time again.

"It is a lot of work, but I'm so happy about the community that we were able to build during Snufkin. It's a very big benefit for us now to be able to keep working with that community, even though we're self-publishing this time around, so we're doing a lot more internally.

"As a small studio, you can't compete with the marketing budgets of the big games, but you can compete on the community side."

Snufkin was published by Raw Fury but this time there's no publisher in sight for Moomintroll. We ask Sundnes what made Hyper Games want to go it alone.

"We're definitely not alone," he immediately replies, referencing Japanese publisher Kakehashi Games (the IP is particularly huge in Japan), marketing and community support from Popagenda, and "a lot of help" from Wings Interactive, which funded the game.

Sundnes still recommends publishers for studios starting up, but the stars were aligned for Hyper Games to self-publish Moomintroll: existing success with the IP, thriving community, in-house expertise, solid partners. That helped de-risk the move, he explains, as the game already had a better chance of doing well.

"We work with a lot of partners, but we always wanted to do more internally. We've been around for a while, and it felt like if we didn't try to do more ourselves, we'd always be depending on someone else. It's a big learning experience, but it's also super valuable, and sets us up for being more independent going forward. We also have very clear opinions about how we want to do things, and it's hard to give away too much of the control to someone else, even if Raw Fury is a great partner. We do want to be able to drive our own ship."

He speaks very highly of Wings Interactive and of the opportunities funds of this nature represent for the industry, especially given the financial challenges facing developers today.

"It's easier for us because we have a track record, but I can only imagine being a small startup studio without the experience. It's super difficult to secure any external funding, and platform deals are more or less off the table. My tip would be to do small games and get some track record. [But] for studios our size, there are cool new opportunities, such as Wings. I'm super happy with the collaboration, and I know there are other funds who want to do good things for the industry and not only think about profit. They have a [bigger] mission.

"I hope we can contribute to get a lot of revenue into that fund because if these funds are profitable, there will be more. It should be a viable funding type. It's interesting to see the experimentation."

The same but different

On the game side, Hyper Games started prototyping and writing some of Moomintroll's script while it was still working on Snufkin, ultimately spending two years on it, versus four on the previous title.

"Knowing what game we wanted to make helped," Sundnes says, noting that while some of the changes may not look "revolutionary," it was all about incremental improvement. "The games are quite different. We didn't want to do just a carbon copy. One of the things that [we] love about Tove Jansson's work is the melancholy that is very prominent in her books. We did a lot of things in Snufkin but that part was missing a bit – the sadness and the darkness.

"[Moominland Midwinter] is one of my favourite books, and it was probably the most important book for Tove Jansson herself, because she had real creative struggles. At that time, she wasn't really dealing well with the success from the previous books, and she didn't want to write any more books about 'happy summer life'. It was through this book that she understood that she could write a different story, about having difficulties and not only the idyllic summer life."

Moomintroll's darker tone means Hyper Games didn't want to lean too heavily on the 'cosy' label, even though Sundnes admits he finds it useful generally.

"[Cosy] is a good label to categorise games that are accessible and not too taxing on players, but the variation within it is so [large]. Personally, I think a lot of games that are categorised as wholesome maybe lack a bit of depth. If everything gets too cosy, it gets a bit flat. For us, it's been important to have a lot of variation in emotion and pacing. While I do identify this game as a wholesome game, it does have a lot of other elements, but I think that applies to most of the games too, right?

"We didn't set out to make a wholesome game – that was never the intention. But I do think it's helpful for us, for marketing the game, and also for players to find games they're interested in."

Looking ahead, it's unclear whether more Moomins projects are on the horizon for Hyper Games.

"We are playing around with prototypes, not specifically for Moomins. We've been working on this for six years. It feels very liberating to not be decided on anything at this point. But personally, I'd be happy to do more Moomins. I do think we want to do smaller games. I don't think we will do another project where we work for four years, because it's too long."

He ends on the age-old question: "How many more games can I make if we spend four years on each game?"

This article was originally published on April 24, 2026 - read the full issue