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Helsinki-based game developer Order of Meta officially unveiled its new mobile game, a PvPvE extraction shooter called Cargo Hunters. Alongside the game announcement, the studio also announced it has raised $3.3 million in a seed round of funding. It plans to put the capital towards the game’s release, which is planned for later this year.
Cargo Hunters is a mobile-first title, meaning it’ll eventually launch on other platforms, in which players are robots fighting for resources on a ravaged, dystopian Earth. The development team plans to launch the game in beta in 2024.
Alexey Sazonov, Order of Meta’s CEO and co-founder, told GamesBeat about Cargo Hunters: “We are super excited about how much innovation is not done yet, how much it’s still needed in this genre.” Sazonov said the team didn’t want to make another “camo-core” extraction shooter but wanted to try something different. “We have robotic characters and enemies, which allows a lot of twists within the genre. There’s not much you can do with a totally realistic setting.”
Sazonov says that the team is also hoping for Cargo Hunters to have a deep metagame (befitting the studio’s name): “We want more, deeper metagame, better quests, more development of things beyond the gameplay session. The whole concept of extraction shooters is still in its infancy. There are a lot of things to experiment with, to try.”
GEM Capital’s investment
GEM Capital led the round, with Korea Investment Partners, Play Ventures, and The Games Fund participating. Part of the attraction of Order of Meta’s project, according to GEM Capital, is the success the founders, Sazonov and COO Sergei Koziakov, found with their previous studio, Panzerdogs, and its game Tacticool.
Kirill Gurskiy, GEM’s managing director, said about the investment in a statement, “GEM Capital’s investment in Order of Meta demonstrates our confidence in the founders’ vision and the studio’s expertise in midcore and hardcore genres. Following the success of Tacticool, we firmly believe in the team’s ability to deliver high-quality mobile massive multiplayer experiences with deep metagame and top-notch visuals for audiences worldwide.”
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