Sumo Group is known for developing highly-acclaimed video games such as Hitman 2, Forza Horizon 4 and 5, Team Sonic Racing, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. The company has not only worked on games with fellow Sumo Digital studios, but also with big external partners such as Apple, Microsoft, and Sony to name a few. Here is our exclusive talk with Stewart Neal, Studio Director at Sumo India Studios.
1. Kindly share a brief about Sumo Digital and its offerings.
Sumo Digital, part of Sumo Group, is an award-winning company that has grown from a team of 13 people to operating 16 full-fledged international studios. We have over 1,000 employees working in studios across the UK, Europe, Canada, and India. Sumo Digital’s journey in India began in 2007 with the opening of our studio in Pune – which was only the second under the Sumo Digital banner at the time.
Following the incredible success of Sumo Pune, which has grown to over 150 talented team members across a myriad of disciplines, we announced in 2021 that we would open another India-based studio, this time in Bangalore, to support the development of some of the most exciting video game projects in the world.
Since then, Sumo India has been involved in developing highly-acclaimed video games such as Hitman 2, Forza Horizon 4 and 5, Team Sonic Racing, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. The company has not only worked on games with fellow Sumo Digital studios, but also with big external partners such as Apple, Microsoft, and Sony to name a few.
At the behest of its studios in Pune and Bangalore, we are looking to provide more opportunities to offer specialized game development services and attract talented people to come and join Sumo India.
2. What are your views on the consumer journey from mobile to console/PC?
In recent years, we’ve seen a significant increase in the development of console games within Indian game development studios. While the Indian market has been a tad slower to adapt to console gaming than other regions, it’s safe to say that the growth is steady.
The slower adaptation isn’t entirely because console games cannot compete with mobile games, but because console gaming is more expensive. Mobile games have demonstrated a strong market with a low barrier to entry, with nearly unlimited games available in the palm of your hand. The limited stock availability of current-generation consoles such as the PlayStation 5 has made console gaming more difficult to adopt, but being well-established in the industry, we are still seeing growth despite these challenges.
3. What are the hiring plans for Sumo Digital?
As Sumo India Studios continues its growth across both Pune and Bangalore Offices our hiring plans aim to support this growth across all disciplines including Art, Engineering, Design, QA, and Production.
Next year will be another exciting year for us regarding project co-development with all other Sumo Digital Studios.
Recruiting Senior and Specialist team members across disciplines will be of importance as we look to build new service lines and specialist teams to support the demand for the exciting AAA games we have in development across Sumo Group.
We have numerous opportunities currently listed on our careers page with more to be added in the coming months so please continue to check back if there is nothing immediate that fits your current skills, experience, and expertise.
4. Can you please tell us about AAA gaming production at Sumo Pune? What were the challenges you faced?
The biggest challenge is to ensure that we consistently welcome new people from India’s broad talent pool to join our development teams. India has a large number of talented programmers, designers, and artists – but with the opening of more studios, the competition for high-priority roles can be fierce.
The value of working within the games industry in India has not traditionally been understood.
Thankfully, the attitude towards the industry has changed massively in recent years. As a Sumo Digital studio, we’re committed to supporting entry-level talent in their journey to establish themselves in the games industry through education as we continue to hire trainees extensively.
We also hope that we can further explore opportunities for outreach through Sumo Pune & Sumo Bangalore to continue supporting the growth of the ever-competitive industry.
5. Please tell us about works done by Sumo Digital on the games such as Hitman 2, Forza Horizon 4, Sackboy: A Big Adventure etc.
For Hitman 2, we worked on the creation of two levels – Columbia and Arc – right from scratch. When it comes to Forza Horizon 4, we worked meticulously on the Barn for the vehicles, as well as vehicle texturing. We were also responsible for environment creation, where we created multiple iconic buildings and also worked on asset creation that could be placed on the map.
While working on Sackboy: A Big Adventure, we worked on level creation and level art. We produced layouts and created multiple art passes by adding assets to the levels, bringing them to life. Other than that, we were also responsible for a lot of art motifs, in which we generated some cool surprises and ideas that could be used in levels.
The Pune design team worked on numerous levels from single-player and multiplayer to time trials for Sackboy: A Big Adventure. We also collaborated with a team from the Sheffield studio to create small sections of grey-box layouts called motifs to explore the interesting combinations of gameplay objects and scenarios.
Furthermore, we shortlisted these motifs and used them along with play areas and surprise and delight moments to give ample challenge whilst maintaining the core principles of the game. We also worked on prototyping various gameplay objects via visual scripting as well. It was indeed a great experience working with the Pune art and code team in tandem with the Sumo Sheffield team.
