Heist Game Den of Wolves Review

Producer 10 Chambers Explains: New Heist Game Den of Wolves

Founded in 2015 by Ulf Andersson and Simon Viklund, the producers of Payday 1 and 2, which have a very important place in heist type games, 10 Chambers was trying a slightly different genre than heist with GTFO, which was released as Early Access in 2019 and the full version in 2021. In fact, although it has a bit of a robbery feel, GTFO, where you try to survive with your teammates and try to escape from the environment you are in, has managed to gain a unique player base.

Ulf Andersson and Simon Viklund, who had previously made a name for themselves with a brand new IP like Payday, achieved this with GTFO, the first game of their newly founded studio, and now they are rolling up their sleeves for a new IP.

Producer 10 Chambers Explains: New Heist Game Den of Wolves

Last November, the 10 Chambers team gathered gaming media from all over the world, including me, in Denmark to show off their new game Den of Wolves and also play the latest episode of GTFO. I’d like to share my notes from there with you now.

The inventors of the heist genre return with Den of Wolves

First, I want to start with their new game Den of Wolves. I specifically mentioned Payday 1 and 2 a moment ago, because this game is one of the pioneers of the heist genre. It was a game that made significant contributions to the genre and developed it with Payday 2. Although GTFO is a different genre, the producers’ passion for the heist genre has not faded away, and the heist genre is returning with Den of Wolves. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong if I used a summary sentence like “A new heist game from the producers of Payday”.

Producer 10 Chambers Explains: New Heist Game Den of Wolves

Simon Viklund, co-founder of 10 Chambers, who told us about Den of Wolves and is responsible for both the stories and the compositions of the Payday series, talked about his passion for the heist genre several times during the presentation. He even stated that his favorite movie with Ulf Andersson is the famous heist movie Heat. GTFO was a kind of resting period for the studio. While they were preparing GTFO, Ulf Andersson did not sit idle and thought about the innovations he could make to the heist genre, and the result was their new game, Den of Wolves.

10 Chambers was a small and independent game developer founded in 2015, but now things have started to change. GTFO’s success in both critical and financial terms has attracted the attention of big companies. “When we were developing the game, we were working with just a room full of people, when we had an idea, we would say it out loud and the whole production team would hear it,” says Simon, talking about his memories from the development process. Although this small team had some disadvantages during the development process, Simon says they used their advantages more; “Everyone on the team contributed a lot to the game. I think GTFO has formed such a tight-knit community of players because the whole team put so much effort and love into it.” 

Producer 10 Chambers Explains: New Heist Game Den of Wolves

Things are a little different in Den of Wolves. Because the Chinese game giant Tencent has made a serious investment in 10 Chambers for Den of Wolves. With this investment, they have expanded the team by hiring many people for the new game project. There is a completely new team working on Den of Wolves for now. Although the original GTFO team is still developing the game, they will now gradually move on to Den of Wolves.

While Simon told us about the game, he said that Den of Wolves would be an innovative heist game, but he didn’t mention what kind of innovations they would make yet. Because the game is currently in the early development phase. In other words, he only tried to tell us the big picture because some of the details he will tell us may change. The game takes place in a fictional city called Midway, in the year 2097. The world is now ruled by corporations, and the biggest corporations are gathered in Midway. In other words, we can say that Midway is the capital of the world. We will also rob these companies in such an environment, but the exact subjects and technical details are not clear.

Producer 10 Chambers Explains: New Heist Game Den of Wolves

Although there is no date given for Den of Wolves yet, I think that the team that released GTFO in a short time with a small team will be able to do Den of Wolves with much more manpower without making it wait too long. I think that information will come with Early Access in at least 1-2 years, and I should state that this is a completely personal estimate.

The last episode of GTFO has started

I also had the chance to play the last part of GTFO at the event I attended. To be honest, I had seen GTFO before but had not played it. Since it was necessary to play with a team, I had not tried GTFO as a singleplayer game enthusiast. I had the chance to experience GTFO in the game area set up at the event area, fortunately led by the game’s community manager. GTFO will no longer receive new content with the 8.0 update Breakdown. This update will be the game’s last content update. Of course, it will continue to receive updates to fix problems detected with the game and regular maintenance will be done on the servers. There will not be any new content.

Producer 10 Chambers Explains: New Heist Game Den of Wolves

The 10 Chambers team, who stated that they have provided all content updates in the game for free so far, state that they promised this to the users from the very beginning. In their adventure as an independent company, they have constantly offered innovations for free as a thank you to the players who supported them. This last major update of GTFO also comes free of charge, even though it actually has enough content to be sold for money.

I regret to inform you that this structure will change with Den of Wolves. Since both the growth of the team and the large production costs have to be supported by a more regular income stream, content can be sold for a fee in Den of Wolves. However, they state that they will set this up very well and will never switch to a Pay-to-Win structure. 

Producer 10 Chambers Explains: New Heist Game Den of Wolves

GTFO’s last major update was released on December 8th. If you haven’t started yet, this might be a good time to start GTFO with your friends. We’ll have to wait a little longer for Den of Wolves. But since I’ve been there and seen it in person, I can easily say that as long as the 10 Chambers team maintains this synergy between them, it doesn’t seem like they’ll make a bad game. So you can add Den of Wolves to your wishlist now and follow the developments. There’s also a separate website that you go to with a pop-up at the bottom of the site. You can access more screenshots or information by cracking the passwords here, and I still haven’t managed to crack the password for one of them…