Gabriel Sauvage, Creative Director at Distant Shore

While browsing social media, a game caught our attention. It promised to be a Portal-style puzzle game with parkour reminiscent of Mirror’s Edge. That was all it took to make us want to talk to French studio Distant Shore. Its founder and creative director, Gabriel Sauvage, kindly answered our questions about their first game, Distant Shore: Brittany, the demo for which will be available on 23 February 2026. It was also an opportunity to discuss the reality of video game production and the current market. This article is a transcript of a podcast that you can find in its entirety on our website and all listening platforms. Let’s meet Gabriel.

Point’n Think: Hello Gabriel. Thank you for accepting our invitation. Before we talk about the game we’re interested in today, could you introduce yourself? And tell us about the attraction to music that stands out in your profile?

Gabriel: Hello, I’m Gabriel Sauvage, CEO, Creative Director, sound designer and composer at Distant Shore studio. I’ve always been passionate about sound. I started playing the guitar when I was 7 or 8 years old. Playing the instrument was interesting, but constantly repeating the same pieces over and over again ended up boring me. I quickly grew tired of playing the instrument. I’ve always wanted to create, even when I was playing the guitar, it was mainly to tinker around, which I enjoyed more than learning to play songs. And I’ve always felt the need to express myself in whatever way I could. In terms of my gaming history, I think the first game I played was when I was 5 or 6 years old, on Game Boy Colour. I think it was Wario Land. Fun fact: when you’re a kid and you discover video games, you can be a bit fascinated by them. So, like any child who has a console for the first time, mine was confiscated at night to stop me playing. I remember getting up at 5 or 6 in the morning to copy the game map. I was quickly fascinated by it. The biggest video game shock I had, like everyone else my age, was Minecraft. It blew my mind, especially the soundtrack by C418. It was a defining moment in my life, because I wasn’t doing very well at the time. So having this outlet to create lots of stuff and find myself in this kind of world where everything is free. I think that’s one of the things that allowed me to start experimenting a little with video game creation, because I was already starting to make maps. When I was exactly 17, I discovered computer-assisted music, how to create sound with a computer, synths, etc. I started on FL Studio. That’s when I thought to myself that I could try to do something in the creative field. I had wanted to make video games for a long time, to create games, but I had no idea how it worked. Then I discovered Gamekult, and it was really the team there that allowed me to forge the beginnings of a gaming culture. In any case, it really helped me learn about and open myself up to everything in the indie sphere. I had already dived into Steam and all that, because I had got a PC when I was 15, but that’s really when I started to take an interest in the industry itself.

Point’n Think: You trained in the field of video games. Could you tell us about that?

Gabriel: I ended up getting my baccalaureate. Then I enrolled at IIM, which was a school that was going through a period of upheaval and restructuring. It was an opportunity to really experiment with everything related to game design, 3D, etc. I quickly realised that what I really liked was specifically sound in video games. I was fascinated by it, especially interactive music. I thought it was absolutely fantastic, and Olivier Derivière’s work in particular was something that interested me enormously. I worked in a company for my internship, my first experience in the industry. We did recordings and post-production of French voices for big games. It wasn’t a very good experience. The work was very repetitive, and that’s where I began to discover the factory side of the industry. I was already being asked to be operational, when I was there to learn. The internship ended when I made a big mistake due to carelessness on a major Playstation Studio game, where I accidentally messed up a large recording station with a wrong move. Feeling a bit helpless, I took a gap year, then took the entrance exam for the best video game school in France, one of the only free ones, ENJMIN. I tried once, but I didn’t get in. I tried my luck a second time, like a lot of people. While I was taking the entrance exam, I did a bachelor’s degree in Toulon to gain some experience and skills. That was when I really discovered a concept that has been important in my career, which is the concept of flow in video games and, more specifically, how sound and music can draw players into the experience and keep them engaged. To explain it quickly, flow is the balance between boredom and challenge. It’s a bit like being a mountaineer climbing a route. Once you start climbing, you don’t stop and you don’t think about anything else because otherwise you’ll die. There’s an adrenaline rush where there’s enough friction to keep you interested but not enough to discourage you. I wrote my dissertation on it. In the end, I got into ENJMIN on my second attempt. I spent two years there. I worked on my first student game, called Kite Kid, which was quite interesting in that it used alternative controllers. It’s something the school tries to encourage because they know that once you enter the industry, it’s the kind of concept you can’t explore. The idea is to push people to experiment with video game media during their studies.

Point’n Think: ENJMIN is a public school that offers several courses. Which course did you choose?

Gabriel: I did the sound design course. I joined a great project that involved emulating the controls of a kite. We had two lines, we pulled the kite strings and controlled the character that way. It was something that made quite an impression. I composed music with quite dynamic sound effects, which basically consisted of lots of layers of flute and wind instrument orchestration. In our final year, we had to come up with projects. That’s when the idea for Distant Shore: Brittany came about. The funny thing is that I had started playing Death Stranding and thought it would be fun to imagine Sam in Brittany. There’s something quite funny about Angoulême [Editor’s note: the town where ENJMIN is located], in Charente, which is a region that experiences a lot of very violent storms. For me, having grown up in Paris, it was quite interesting to be confronted with this directly. I live in the hills above Angoulême, so I have a good view of the weather. The idea of the storm became more and more interesting to me in terms of a concept to use or explore in my creative work. Very quickly, I came up with the pitch for a post-apocalyptic Brittany. You walk to find a character and the environment is an obstacle, a kind of conscious storm that is the main antagonist. The main obstacle is the climate. I’ve always wanted to make games that talk about the world around us, using science fiction in particular. What I like is the amplification, through a fictional world, of a real theme, as in Neuromancer with the development of the internet. Right now, the hot topic is global warming, so why not make a game that talks about that and is based partly in France?

Point’n Think: You mention Paris and Angoulême, but you’re not from Brittany. Why did you choose this region over another?

Gabriel: That’s a question a lot of people have asked me. The answer is quite simple. I had a difficult family situation with a relative when I was 17 and, without going into details, I didn’t see that person for three years and the last time I saw them, before we got back together, was during a trip to Brittany. The region had a certain significance for me. When I was younger, I often visited Brittany and discovered certain places in the region, such as Lagnan, but also a little further along the coast. I saw a little of Brittany and what I found fascinating was its folklore, its culture, but above all the contemplative, melancholic, raw side it evokes. There is this feeling of something hard that has lived through and resisted the ravages of time. This place exudes mystery through its nature, its landscapes and its panoramas more than through its culture itself. There was also a very important theme for me, which I realised later, and that was the concept of the sea. Since I was little, I’ve been lucky enough to have grandparents who lived in the south and to be able to visit them there. I think that, like a lot of people, I have a lot of trouble with noise pollution, especially in Paris, where it’s really stifling. When you dive into the water, there’s a silence that creates a kind of inner peace that spreads through you. The sea is always present in my world, hence the name Distant Shore. With the themes of global warming, storms and the sea, I’m starting to see something take shape for the project, which is a kind of realisation of several inspirations and emotional experiences I’ve had before.

Point’n Think: The project we’re interested in today is your first commercial game. How did it come about? How did you manage to put a team together?

Gabriel: I’m finishing ENJMIN. The day after my thesis defence, I have my first meeting for Distant Shore: Brittany. What’s pretty crazy about this project is that today, after three years, we’ve managed to achieve a result that’s already quite impressive from a technical point of view, but especially because we never received any funding. The entire project was carried out by people who joined us and worked on it in their spare time or while unemployed, in the case of the company’s partners. I knew nothing and no one, but people trusted me. The first person to believe in me was Fabrice Tambrun, a Unity developer and game designer, who was a teacher I had had a few years earlier. I told him about the project without necessarily wanting to work on it, just to talk to him about it and get his opinion. He told me frankly that it was too cool and that he was on board. We started working on a prototype that had absolutely nothing to do with the current game. That was the beginning of this crazy adventure. At the same time, I was doing an internship at a company called Cujo Sound, working on the MMO game Pax Dei. I started working on Bretagne and thinking about the gameplay. As an aside, it was really Fabrice who initially came up with the magnet mechanics, which allow you to manipulate the environment. Basically, I wanted to make a walking simulator. He told me we needed a real feature. He was right.

Point’n Think: We’ve already mentioned a number of elements. Before we get into the details, could you pitch Distant Shore Bretagne to us?

Gabriel: It’s a puzzle platformer with the unique feature that there are multiple ways to solve situations. In other words, there may be a main path, but we’re using a magnetic power that allows us to attract and repel metal objects, either from ourselves or between them. We can also twist rusty structures, a bit like Magneto. There’s a whole system of electricity propagation through all metal objects and also water, with some pretty crazy ideas. There’s a real experimental aspect to the gameplay and the journey because you have quite a lot of freedom. I’d say it’s a mix between Portal and Mirror’s Edge, which is a good way of explaining the principle of the game. We’re in the western zone, which is a post-apocalyptic version of Finistère where there has been a lot of climate experimentation. It’s a parallel with the past and even the present day in Brittany in terms of ecological problems with green algae and the pig industry, but also lots of other concerns. Brittany is a highly industrialised and, unfortunately, heavily exploited area, and it is also the site of many struggles. We travel through this environment in search of our brother, who disappeared after a disaster. The story revolves around finding this important character named Gael, and the core of the game revolves around moving through environments. The principle of the game is to find your way through obstacles, knowing that there are several ways to do so. The twist, to tie in with what I was saying, is that the antagonist is a conscious cloud that spies on our every move. It will intervene more or less punctually in the adventure to modify the level design by its presence. For example, it will start to rain and puddles will form, which will spread the current. At one point, it will throw lightning bolts, but since there are a lot of metal elements, it quickly becomes chaotic. Overall, it’s a game that plays a lot on experimentation, the journey, the platform, physics and systems.

Point’n Think: You mention physics. How did you manage to implement such a realistic physics engine that allows you to play with different elements, such as magnetism?

Gabriel: To put it simply, the coder working on the game is Robin Picou, who has 15 years of experience in the industry. He’s a real whizz who coded the entire game, including the VFX. What happened, in terms of the project’s history, is that we started in January 2023. After a year, the team had changed quite a bit and we got our first rejections from publishers because we had a walking simulator, which was a nice experience but very linear and, above all, not very interesting from a gameplay perspective. We rebooted the concept. The game we show in trailers, and which people will soon be able to try out, is the result of two years of work and experimentation in every direction. To answer the question about realistic physics specifically, it’s a huge amount of work on Robin’s part. First, there’s the physical behaviour of the objects themselves. The problem is that basic physics isn’t necessarily very fun to use when it’s very realistic. For example, in our case, we cheated by increasing gravity, which makes objects feel a little more responsive when they fall. But that causes a lot of problems, since the character is also subject to gravity. This means that we have to work on the relationship between gravity and the character. It’s a very iterative process, both from a coding and a design perspective. The game is both in line with what we wanted to do and, at the same time, has diverged quite a bit in its design, in the sense that initially, you could manipulate everything. After a year, we ended up deciding that we should only manipulate metal objects, otherwise it was going to be hell. Initially, we thought big, but as we tried to prototype, we realised what was feasible and what wasn’t. And through the systems we developed and refined, we arrived at this result. It’s a colossal amount of work on Robin’s part, so once again, well done to him.

Point’n think: You’re developing in Unity. Is that a good choice when you want to achieve a realistic artistic direction?

Gabriel: There’s also someone else who played a key role in the project, Fabien Di Pardo. The game is quite visually appealing. And I can tell you that with Unity, it’s not necessarily easy. I think it’s more complicated to make very attractive games on Unity than on Unreal, but I’m still a novice in this area. It is possible, though. A large part of the graphic quality we’ve achieved is thanks to Fabien, who is an expert in Unity rendering, lighting, post-processing, environment work, especially on sand, etc. He’s someone who knows the engine inside out. To answer your question, it’s a long and very complex process that took two years. This brings me to a point I wanted to address. I think it’s interesting in the project cycle. There’s a quote from John Romero, who says that the process of creating a video game is a chaotic process. You can try to bring as much order to it as you want, but it’s chaos. That said, there are methods for creating something that works. When you try to make a game that’s a bit innovative, or even when you want to create something in general, you’re faced with a degree of chaos and also the terror that this implies in terms of risk, especially for independent developers. The current context is extremely difficult, but that’s part of the game. Through this experience, I’ve learned that the challenge of video game development is to embrace the chaos and extract something interesting and distinctive from it.

Point’n Think: When we watch the trailers, we realise that we’re moving away from the classic puzzle game with a restricted environment. What you’re offering is much more open, with more elements. Do you allow the player to break the game, or, despite appearances, is everything under control?

Gabriel: That was important in the development process. My view today, and I think it’s the view of quite a few players, is that the more we advance in the video game industry, the greater the gap between different types of production. On the one hand, we’re going to have productions that are increasingly expensive and increasingly standardised in order to target a market with extreme precision. What sells best today are licensed games. The premise of these games is really to create all the constraints in terms of the system, with quests, in order to create the expected experience, which sometimes lacks surprises. It’s a tried and tested formula that’s easy to sell and, above all, less risky. On the other hand, we have indie games that aim to break away from this. These are projects that try to give players more freedom, that try to place fewer constraints on their movements or what they can do. We went through that stage a bit, where we were afraid because we found ourselves with a power that allowed us to manipulate everything. Initially, we started with something that was almost open world in structure. We realised all the problems that this could cause because it was complicated to frame the player and get them to go to certain places and not others. We don’t have the capacity to make a game like Breath of the Wild in terms of openness. There’s also the reality of production that we have to contend with. To answer your question, we ended up with this interesting design that allows for scenarios where nature becomes a natural obstacle.

Point’n Think: How do you justify these natural events in terms of lore?

Gabriel: The idea behind Distant Shore: Brittany, even the story of the game, is that it all takes place in 2080. In 2040, there was World War III. The USA and Canada were blown up by an alliance known as the Eastern Coalition, who turned the tables and ended up dominating the West from a hegemonic point of view. Europe finds itself in a situation where it no longer has the right to use nuclear energy and there are no more fossil fuels. The only energy left is green energy, wind and solar. Except that, as most people know, today this is not enough to satisfy all energy consumption. Unfortunately, we are still a long way from that. As the climate begins to change in our fiction, the sea level drops. It has receded by 30 metres. There is a real sense that environments that were not initially visible are suddenly visible. That’s what happens in the demo. We explore an environment where the water has receded. This creates natural barriers. In this increasingly climatically unstable environment, there is a company, Bio2, which aims to exploit climate issues. For example, the weather is becoming increasingly unpredictable and the winds increasingly violent. We’re going to use this to produce more, still using green energy. We’re exploiting the ecological disaster in order to maintain our modern lifestyle in terms of energy consumption. In this premise, we play heavily on the ecological disaster aspect and the way nature has adapted to different climatic events. It is through this lens that we use the fact that the landscape has evolved, turning what was once a cliff or a harbour into a 30-metre mountain to be crossed. Since we are initially in fairly natural environments, it is easier for us to place human elements in a much more sporadic manner. For example, you have shipwrecks or stranded containers. And then, on the other hand, there are places that are much more built up, much more man-made, such as the ruins of a quay or a control building. Since these are buildings, they are more confined and allow us to better control the player’s progress. To achieve this result, we had to try a lot of things and make a lot of mistakes.

Point’n Think: Could you explain a little more about what you mean by a chaotic process?

Gabriel: A rather amusing example that I like to use, and which makes people laugh, is that I had a somewhat bizarre and far-fetched idea. It was in 2024, and there was an entire level that was a kind of basin in which algae were being cultivated. Objects were found on different floating platforms. Basically, they were there to pump the algae and produce energy. A bit like floating biomass power plants. Robin had coded an entire water system in which a huge number of physical objects reacted to the drop in water level. For example, we had a difference of thirty metres. From a performance and technical point of view, it was really not easy. In the end, we scrapped the level because we couldn’t make anything work with it. But we kept the water level progression system. Because, for example, with the cloud, we use rain to fill potholes with torrential rain and create puddles. That’s what I mean when I say it’s a chaotic process. The fact is, we had an initial idea and we kept some elements of it. We ended up reusing and transforming features into something better. I think it’s interesting feedback because there are quite young people reading us, who may still be in education, who are about to start or finish their studies. And I think it’s important for them to understand that no two video game productions are alike. Even two games of the same type, the same genre and potentially with the same storyline, depending on the people working on them and many other parameters, will never be the same. A good idea is still a good idea, but when put together with others, it may not work.

Point’n Think: When designing puzzles, the tutorial phase is somewhat hidden so that the player understands the mechanics as they become more powerful. Then we add elements as we go along to avoid any impression of redundancy. How do you manage to design this kind of progression in a demo?

Gabriel: We’re still looking for funding and trying to sign a publisher. That’s why we’re developing this demo. It’s so we can get maximum visibility, get streamers to play the game, get wishlists, and then find funding and continue the project with peace of mind. The challenge over the last two years has been to create a playable demo that showcases what’s interesting about the game. Many demos and vertical slices tend to drop players straight into the game with a whole host of mechanics to learn, which is a problem because it’s very complicated from a tutorial perspective. Nowadays, it’s not easy to throw a publisher into a game and say, “We need to make a section with ultra-boring actions for them to understand how to play, and then put them in a specific context where they can reinvest what they’ve learned.” It’s a big debate that we’ve had for a very long time. Do we make a demo where we try to develop the bulk of the mechanics, or do we start at the beginning of the game and really try to create the first hour experience? We finally opted for the second solution, which had the disadvantage of complicating dialogue with the editors. They asked us if that was all we had because it was cool, but they wanted to know what upgrades we could add. The level design was built around offering a first hour experience, and we wanted to teach players how to use the mechanics step by step. So initially, we had this whole problem of how to teach players how to play. I had the idea of the beach, where we would put a few objects and give players the opportunity to experiment. Except that we hadn’t anticipated that our magnets, the concept of the game, could be a problem. These magnets, you recall them, you send them, and they allow you to control physical objects in the environment. Until a few months ago, you could still place magnets anywhere in the environment. Even though you could only move metal objects, you could place our magnets anywhere in the environment. This meant that people were a bit lost because if they could place their magnets anywhere, that meant they could potentially do anything and go anywhere. So we started by moving all the objects in the game, then moving the metal objects, and then we were able to move the metal objects and place these magnets only on metal objects or surfaces. What I mean is that this constraint came from the fact that you can twist elements and play on the conductivity between metal objects, etc. As we went along, we narrowed the scope by creating constraints to achieve a consistent level design. This allows players to understand the mechanics step by step with a clear set of rules and systems. Our process was to create environments to tutor the player, and then there was the challenge. Philippe Renouil, the game director, helped us a lot in this process. He arrived last April/May to help us structure everything and set the pace for the gaming experience.

Point’n Think: The cornerstone of your project right now is finding funding. Could you tell us about that? And what is required by a publisher?

Gabriel: I’m going to be very pessimistic in what I’m about to describe. I’ll give you an overview of the situation. It’s early 2026. In November 2023, there was a severe recession. Today, the situation is the same as last year and will probably remain the same for the whole of this year. Publishers are prioritising projects that are finished. That means games that are six months away from release and have already racked up a staggering number of wishlist entries. I was talking to a publisher who told me to come back with a hundred thousand wishlists. We’re dealing with unrealistic expectations because the market is saturated. Publishers no longer know how to sell games. It’s always a gamble from a financial point of view. It’s a combination of intuition, experience and market knowledge. It must be complicated right now to want to release a game and make it profitable. There’s a AAA game coming out every week throughout the year, plus there’s GTA, which has pushed back its release date four times in three years, so it’s difficult to make plans. The bottom line is that if you’re independent and want to make a video game, if it’s your first studio project, it’s extremely difficult to finance it. There is a deep aversion to risk on the part of publishers, and this is global. Unless you’re working on low-budget games, around three hundred thousand euros. The budget range for signing is five hundred thousand euros for one year, and no more than a year and a half. As soon as you start to reach €750,000, it gets complicated, so €2 million is really tough. There are two ways: either you have AA studios that come in with an initial investment and give up a large share of their company to enable them to develop a vertical slice, which will then enable them to sign a publisher. That’s basically what happened with Clair Obscur, if I’m not mistaken. Sorry, Guillaume Broche, don’t get mad at me if the information is wrong, I have nothing against them. Or you’re really working on very low-budget productions. There’s not really anything in between. This year will be quite decisive for a lot of investors and publishers, because it’s the year when productions that started during the Covid-19 bubble will be released. If the figures are good, they can start reinvesting seriously. It will never be the same as it was before the bubble burst, but it will pick up. Either it will stay as it is now, or it will get worse. It’s such a mess, with so many players involved, that it’s very difficult to predict the future. It’s already complicated to predict the market for the next two months, let alone a year…

Point’n Think: And how do you position Distant Shore: Brittany in all this?

Today, when you’re an independent developer and you want to sign a game with our budget, which is generally between €750,000 and €2 million, the only chance we have is to create a buzz. That means participating in next-fests to showcase a demo, participating in a showcase with a trailer on IGN, and getting lots of wishlists, etc. It boils down to doing what would normally be expensive via a marketing service, i.e. figuring out how to do it ourselves using social media, trends, etc. That’s really the name of the game today. You have to become an influencer or do the work of an influencer to gain visibility and prove to a publisher that there is real interest in the project, in the hope of signing a deal. Or you have to be very lucky, with the right timing, the right project and the right budget. But personally, I wouldn’t advise you to rely on luck. It’s not a good strategy, especially if you’re investing money and people behind it.

Point’n Think: By the time this interview is published, the demo will be out in a few days: 23 February. What are your expectations for this demo?

Well, what I’m expecting is three hundred thousand wish lists and a yacht! More seriously, we’re putting together a strategy to contact influencers, marketers and the press, to reach everyone with a trailer. We’re casting a wide net to get it out to everyone. Which is also very complicated from a personal and human point of view. Everyone knows the game, Unrecord. Most people have heard of this bodycam FPS, which was revealed three years ago and managed to raise funds. They signed with The Games Fund, which is an investment house. They developed a vertical slice, then managed to secure other investments. Now they’ve raised six million with Tencent. In total, they now have a significant budget that will allow them to release the game. When they showed the first trailer, it was very difficult for them because they didn’t want to show it so early, but they didn’t have any money. The only way for them to move the project forward was to show it. We’re very happy with what we’ve done so far, the game is a lot of fun and we’re very satisfied with what we’ve produced. But of course, we’d like it to be better, with prettier graphics. Obviously, we’d like to offer a more advanced demo, even if we only have forty-five minutes or an hour of demo time, we’d like to have the polish of a game that’s been in production for three years full time. There’s also a big difference between a production where you have twelve people working full-time as salaried employees, knowing exactly what the deadlines are, and a project where you give yourself six months to make a vertical slice. The six months turn into a year, then two years. The realities of everyone working in their spare time change, and it’s not easy. Especially when you’re doing it all remotely, it’s not always the easiest thing to do. Even so, I only want to work remotely on this kind of project. But it’s cool when you have a very clear vision of deadlines, milestones, and what you’re going to do. When it’s much more nebulous, when it’s really paced month by month, it’s very complicated. To come back to the question, we’re waiting for wish lists. What’s really going to change things for us is creating buzz. We know it’s not perfect yet, that it could be better. However, we already know that it’s cool, and we hope that what we’ve been able to produce so far will convince you enough to support the project, follow us on our social media, share our posts, and tell everyone about the game. I would like to thank the entire team working on Distant Shore: Nathan, Philippe, Robin, Fabien, Damien, Thomas, Corentin, and everyone who gives us advice.

Point’n Think: As we record this, it’s the end of January, and you’re in the middle of a rush to prepare this demo so that you can present the game in the most polished way possible. How do you see things progressing after that?

Gabriel: It’s very difficult to say, because in fact, overall, pretty much everything will be decided at that point. Depending on the enthusiasm we generate and the metrics we are able to obtain, that will define a lot of things. In any case, we’re going to approach publishers again with an improved version, this demo we’re offering, documents, etc. That will give us concrete proof of how players react and who our target audience is. But as for what happens next, we’ve been working on this project for a long time, and today, it’s become difficult to continue without funding. I’m not going to say that the project is doomed if we don’t exactly achieve our goals, but there is a bit of that. We’re kind of on a poker table, and we’re doing everything we can with what we have left in terms of energy and time for the project. Several people have asked us about crowdfunding. What you have to understand is that either you have a large community, or you pay for a marketing campaign for your Kickstarter. That means you need money, but you already have to spend thirty thousand euros on a campaign. In any case, for projects of our scale, the days of asking for a million five and getting it are pretty much over. People always say to me, “You get funding for video games.” In fact, you have to understand how video game funding works. Today, and this is not to attack public funding bodies, but they almost never give funding to studios whose project is their first. It can happen, but only if your production is already funded. In a way, you can’t blame them, because it’s a fairly logical calculation. Making a video game is extremely complicated, especially raising the money to do it.

Point’n Think: We mentioned the case of Sandfall Interactive, who reignited the debate around the definition of independence in video games. Where do you stand on this?

Gabriel: I think we need to separate independence from a legal standpoint and independence from a creative standpoint. Because that’s where things are quite different. Basically, you’re not an indie game because you’ve made a million-euro game and your game is funded by a publisher. And that’s where the question gets complicated, because from a simple point of view, you could say that an indie game is a solo developer or people who finance the project themselves from A to Z with their own resources. And that would be the literal definition, at least from a legal, technical or financial point of view. On the other hand, from a more realistic and creative point of view, my view is that a game can still be independent even if it is published. For example, if the publisher really fell in love with the project and signed it, it’s because they believed in the creative vision. And so that means they have no interest in completely changing or putting obstacles in the way in terms of creative control over the production. I’m not saying that doesn’t happen, I’m just saying that, especially in the current market, either the project is exactly what they want so they have the least amount of work to do. It’s the least amount of risk possible. They’re supposed to finance people who know how to make games. And so, in that sense, you’re still independent. Either there are indie publishers who, on the other hand, have to have controlling authority, and in that case, both from a creative and financial point of view, no, you’re no longer independent. Whatever kind of project you’re working on, even if you’re making a game that fits today’s codes, those codes won’t be the same next year. They change all the time. Today, the trend is to make multiplayer games cobbled together in three months, sold for six quid and selling three million copies. But the truth is that in a year’s time, it will be something else. The feedback we’re getting from publishers is that they’re turning to what’s known as UGC, User Generated Content, and everything related to Web 3, wanting to transform all games into a kind of Roblox where you can create your own experience. And that’s the crux of the problem in the industry: either we have people trying to position themselves on what seems to be the trend of the moment or the next few years; or we have publishers who are really trying to bet on innovative projects despite the risks, but who are extremely selective in terms of the projects they sign, precisely to “de-risk” the project in an ultra-competitive economy.

Point’n Think: We’re slowly coming to the end of this interview. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Gabriel: I wanted to wish good luck to our readers, to all the independent developers working in the industry who have embarked on the project of starting their own studio, to all those aged 35-40 who are wondering about their future in an industry that does not respect them. As we speak, there have been major reforms at Ubisoft with strikes announced. To all the students who are graduating or still in school, who have been promised the moon and the stars, told that if they pay thirty thousand euros for their education, they will be guaranteed a job in the industry, beware, it’s not true. It’s not impossible, but it’s getting harder and harder. Take care of yourselves, both psychologically and financially, and good luck with the mess you’re about to get yourselves into. It’s quite strange for me to say that now, especially since we’re at a pivotal moment for the studio. From our point of view, we’ve done our utmost to bring this project to fruition, which started out as a personal dream and quickly turned into a shared dream. It’s a real human adventure, and as we know, those can be tortuous. There are arguments, shouting matches, disagreements, misunderstandings, departures, arrivals, but there are also plenty of joyful moments rich in learning. Even though it’s all very trying over the long term, people who know me are quite surprised. They’re surprised at how much the young lad who left school at 24 has evolved three years later and softened his stance on quite a few issues. I wanted to wish everyone good luck, whatever your role in the industry at the moment, whatever your position, whatever your circumstances. The final message I would like to convey is a thank you to all those who have been working in the industry for a long time and who, through their experience and passion, have created games that I have probably played and that have inspired me to want to make my own. To those who have been here for a long time, thank you. To those who are just starting out, good luck.

This brings us to the end of this interview, which, I would like to remind you, is available in its entirety in podcast format. Despite the difficulties inherent in the video game industry, we are fortunate to still have innovative projects led by passionate people. We strongly encourage you to try the games and, if you like them, to let people know in whatever way suits you best. A follow, a wish list, a share—all of these things are invaluable given the number of titles released each year. Give strength to those who make you love video games. One last reminder: Distant Shore: Brittany will be available to try in a demo on 23 February 2026. Have fun!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3892370/Distant_Shore_BRETAGNE