Josef Fares has never been one for corporate speak or false modesty, so when the outspoken Hazelight Studios founder declares that his studio operates “like a Formula One car today – it drives perfectly,” you can bet he’s not engaging in empty hyperbole. Speaking with Gamereactor’s David Caballero at San Diego Comic-Con Malaga, the It Takes Two director painted a picture of studio culture so healthy, so optimized, and so passionate that it almost sounds too good to be true. “After 10 years in the studio, how good everybody is feeling, how happy they are. We are like 83 developers, and I’m telling you, everybody’s nice. Everybody. We don’t have a single one that is weird or crazy,” Fares enthused with characteristic unfiltered honesty that has become his trademark.
This isn’t just feel-good PR nonsense. Hazelight has delivered three consecutive critical and commercial hits – A Way Out (2018), It Takes Two (2021), and Split Fiction (2025) – establishing them as unquestioned masters of cooperative gameplay while maintaining a studio size that most AAA publishers would consider impossibly small for such ambitious projects. The Formula One comparison captures something essential about Hazelight’s efficiency: every component optimized, no wasted motion, speed without sacrificing precision, and a relentless drive for perfection that defines both motorsport and Fares’ approach to game development. But how exactly does a Swedish studio achieve this mythical perfect workplace culture while still shipping genre-defining games every 2-3 years?
The 83 Developers Where ‘Everybody Is Nice’
Fares’ emphasis on workplace culture sounds almost naive in an industry infamous for crunch, toxicity, and the horror stories that emerge from troubled game productions. “We don’t have a single one that is weird or crazy. Everybody is nice, I’m telling you,” he repeated in the interview, stressing this point with genuine enthusiasm that suggests it’s not taken for granted despite how simple it sounds.
This hiring philosophy represents deliberate strategy rather than fortunate accident. Game development talent pools are deep enough that studios can afford to be selective beyond pure technical competence. “And I think that passion is what is showing in our games. People are really feeling that passion,” Fares explained, connecting workplace happiness directly to product quality in ways that sound obvious yet remain rare in practice.
The relatively small 83-person team size enables maintaining this culture in ways that become impossible at scale. “Once you have that energy in the studio, you see it in the game,” Fares continued, describing feedback loops where positive workplace culture produces better games, which generates pride and satisfaction that reinforces positive culture. However, this virtuous cycle requires constant protection – a single “weird or crazy” hire can poison team dynamics and disrupt collaborative efficiency that defines Hazelight’s working method.
Why Small Teams Matter
- Communication Efficiency – 83 people can maintain direct relationships without bureaucratic layers
- Cultural Cohesion – Small teams more easily establish and protect shared values
- Hiring Selectivity – Smaller headcount enables rejecting technically qualified but culturally problematic candidates
- Rapid Iteration – Fewer approval chains between creative vision and implementation
- Personal Investment – Individual contributions remain visible rather than anonymous within massive teams
10 Years of Refinement: The Evolution to F1 Precision
Hazelight’s current efficiency didn’t emerge fully formed – it represents a decade of learning, iteration, and deliberate process refinement that Fares acknowledges openly. “From a perspective of how it becomes so effective, it’s because we have done a lot of games, we know how to do it, we have built the right technology for it, we know how to approach it,” he explained, emphasizing accumulated institutional knowledge that studios typically lose through turnover and project resets.
The progression from Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (2013, developed at Starbreeze Studios before Hazelight’s founding) through A Way Out to It Takes Two demonstrates visible evolution in technical competence and production efficiency. “Obviously, it was a bit rough around the edges, then you see It Takes Two and [Split Fiction], you see the evolution of the team. How we’re getting better and better, more mature, having more technical skills, building more correct tools for our games,” Fares told Vice in a separate interview, documenting the learning curve that most studios never publicly acknowledge.
This evolution wasn’t without crisis. Fares has spoken previously about nearly losing everything during A Way Out’s troubled production: “I got a little bit of panic but didn’t say anything to the team. I couldn’t pay the team salary for a fair few months after that,” he revealed in a 2022 Swedish Radio podcast. The studio burned through 5 million (currency unclear) in two years of “pure chaos,” forcing Fares to direct commercials just to make payroll. That near-death experience taught lessons about financial management, production planning, and crisis navigation that inform Hazelight’s current stability.
“We’re just getting started, man,” Fares told Vice with characteristic confidence, suggesting the current Formula One efficiency level represents foundation for even greater ambitions rather than peak achievement. This mindset – that perfection is ongoing process rather than destination – explains how Hazelight continues improving rather than calcifying around successful formulas.
Passion as Competitive Advantage
Fares returns repeatedly to “passion” as core differentiator, though he’s careful to distinguish genuine passion from crunch-justified exploitation that uses “passion” as excuse for overwork and poor compensation. “People are really feeling that passion. And once you have that energy in the studio, you see it in the game,” he emphasized, describing passion as emergent property of healthy workplace rather than demand placed upon employees.
This passion manifests in specific development decisions that most studios would reject as inefficient. Split Fiction features a dragon-riding segment that took eight months to develop despite appearing for only 10 minutes of gameplay. “In the beginning of my career, a lot of the team members were like, ‘Why are we doing all this and you’re only playing it for like 10 minutes?'” Fares recalled in an Xbox News interview.
His response reveals core philosophy: “[In a] movie, if you have a great scene that cost a lot of money, you don’t reuse that scene because it cost a lot of money. I do feel sometimes that cool moments like that wouldn’t have been as cool if we just reused them all the time. There is [an idea] in video games that, just because something was very expensive, it needs to be reused. But why?”
This willingness to “waste” development resources on brief memorable moments rather than recycling mechanics for efficiency reflects passion for player experience over development economics. It’s precisely the kind of decision that corporate oversight typically prevents, yet it defines Hazelight’s games – constant surprise, variety over repetition, delight prioritized above optimization. Ironically, this anti-efficient philosophy produces more engaging games that sell better, validating passion as legitimate business strategy rather than indulgent luxury.
Clear Vision and Focused Execution
Fares identifies “clear vision” as third pillar of Hazelight’s efficiency alongside team culture and accumulated expertise. “We’re just a very focused studio. And we also have a clear vision of what to do, even if we experiment a lot. We have a clear vision and we stick with it. And I think that’s very important. That’s what makes it more efficient,” he explained, describing balance between creative experimentation and strategic consistency.
This vision centers exclusively on cooperative multiplayer experiences – a niche most major studios ignore despite Hazelight’s commercial proof-of-concept. “Josef Fares has found big success with co-operative two player games. Why aren’t others doing the same?” BBC questioned, highlighting the puzzle of competitors not flooding this apparently lucrative market despite clear demand.
The answer likely involves risk aversion and genre unfamiliarity. Cooperative design requires fundamentally different thinking than single-player or competitive multiplayer – asymmetric abilities, shared progression systems, communication requirements, and relationship dynamics that most game designers haven’t deeply explored. Hazelight’s decade of co-op focus has built institutional knowledge that competitors can’t easily replicate even if they wanted to.
“Obviously you do have challenges, but we’re just a very focused studio,” Fares acknowledged, not pretending development is effortless despite efficiency advantages. The difference lies in facing challenges within clear parameters – they know they’re making co-op games, they understand the technical requirements, they’ve solved common problems repeatedly. This constrained scope eliminates entire categories of uncertainty that plague studios trying to reinvent themselves with every project.
Small Teams With Radical Autonomy
Hazelight’s internal structure empowers small teams with unusual creative freedom. “You may be 1-2 designers owning a level (2ish hours of gameplay). The individuals get a huge amount of ownership and few restrictions,” one source explained on KB Recordzz. “When creativity flows from one source (the classical director) it’s limited by that person. But Josef’s approach is closer to saying ‘You have one hour, create a f***ed up mechanic, do some cool twists. Also I want this level to be about sorrow.'”
This distributed creativity model preserves Fares’ directorial vision while enabling individual designers to inject personality and ideas that a single director couldn’t generate alone. “That allows individual creativity to spike, (and then shown and filtered through Josef) rather than the other way around,” the analysis continued, describing curation rather than micromanagement as Fares’ leadership style.
The approach requires trust that team members won’t abuse creative freedom or produce wildly inconsistent work that undermines overall coherence. This circles back to hiring – selecting developers who combine technical skill, creative ambition, and understanding of Hazelight’s cooperative philosophy becomes crucial when granting significant autonomy. “Everybody’s nice” isn’t just workplace pleasantness; it’s prerequisite for collaborative environment where radical autonomy doesn’t devolve into ego clashes and territorial disputes.
Technical Excellence Rarely Acknowledged
Fares expresses pride in Hazelight’s technical achievements that often go unrecognized amid discussion of creative innovation. “A lot of people forget that with split-screen, you have to render two screens at the same time while still running 60 frames per second on consoles,” he told Vice, highlighting challenges that non-developers rarely appreciate.
Split Fiction’s technical polish particularly impressed Digital Foundry, the respected performance analysis outlet. “We just saw Digital Foundry when they do their technical [analysis]. They were super impressed with what we did,” Fares noted with obvious satisfaction. Maintaining 60 FPS in split-screen while introducing new mechanics every 15 minutes requires optimization depth that many technically impressive games don’t need to achieve.
“When you make a mechanic, it’s quite fast to prototype stuff, but to make it to a level of polish, that’s the tricky part. And that’s why your normal game is usually a core mechanic that you polish, polish, polish until it feels good. But, we wanna do it differently,” Fares explained, contrasting Hazelight’s variety-focused approach with traditional deep-mechanic-polish philosophy that defines most games.
This technical confidence enables creative ambition – designers can propose wild ideas knowing the engineering team will figure out implementation without compromising performance. “Your normal game is usually a core mechanic that you polish,” creates limit ed palette; Hazelight’s engineering prowess expands what’s technically feasible, enabling the constant surprise and variety that defines their games.
The EA Originals Partnership
Hazelight’s success story includes EA Originals, the program that funded A Way Out in 2016 after Fares’ near-bankruptcy scare. Unlike traditional publisher deals where studios sacrifice IP rights and creative control, EA Originals functions more like venture capital – EA funds development and handles publishing while studios retain IP ownership and creative autonomy.
This relationship enables Hazelight’s independence while providing AAA marketing budgets and distribution infrastructure that small studios can’t self-fund. All three of Hazelight’s releases came through EA Originals, suggesting mutually beneficial partnership where EA gets proven quality without development risk, while Hazelight gets resources without creative compromise.
The arrangement’s success challenges conventional wisdom about publisher-developer dynamics. “It Takes Two sold over 20 million copies, winning multiple Game of the Year awards including the main prize at The Game Awards 2021,” demonstrating commercial viability of the model. EA benefits from Hazelight’s success without needing to micromanage creative decisions, while Hazelight leverages EA’s infrastructure without losing the focused vision that defines their work.
Why This Matters Beyond Hazelight
Fares’ Formula One car metaphor reveals uncomfortable truths about industry norms. If 83 happy developers produce Games of the Year, what does that say about 500-person teams with notorious crunch cultures producing mediocre results? If small autonomous teams generate more creativity than hierarchical command structures, why do most studios default to traditional management?
The answer involves risk, scale, and institutional inertia. Hazelight’s model works partly because Fares’ strong creative vision provides coherence that pure democracy couldn’t achieve. Larger studios with weaker creative leadership might attempt similar autonomy only to produce incoherent messes without unifying vision.
Additionally, Hazelight’s focused genre specialization enables efficiency that genre-hopping studios can’t replicate. Each game teaches lessons directly applicable to the next, building expertise that compounds rather than resets. Studios attempting new genres each project sacrifice this accumulated knowledge, requiring more developers and time to achieve similar quality.
However, certain lessons transfer regardless of studio size or genre: hire for cultural fit alongside technical skill, protect team happiness as strategic asset rather than luxury, grant autonomy to motivated professionals, maintain clear vision while enabling individual creativity, and understand that passionate teams produce better work than cynical mercenaries regardless of raw talent.
What’s Next for the F1 Car
Hazelight has already begun development on their next game, though details remain closely guarded. “Split Fiction Developer Hazelight Studios Has Already Started Next Game,” Gadgets 360 reported following Split Fiction’s March 2025 launch, with Fares describing himself as “fully-focused and excited” about the mysterious project.
Given the three-game track record – prison break thriller, couple’s therapy platformer, sci-fi writer duo adventure – attempting pattern prediction feels futile. The only certainty is two-player cooperative gameplay, EA Originals publishing, and constant mechanical variety that defines Hazelight’s approach.
“We’re just getting started, man,” Fares told Vice, suggesting the current perfection represents foundation for even greater ambitions. If a Formula One car drives perfectly, what happens when you give it more powerful engine?
Frequently Asked Questions
How many developers work at Hazelight Studios?
83 developers according to Josef Fares’ October 2025 interview, a relatively small team compared to AAA studios that often employ 300-500+ people for major projects.
What games has Hazelight Studios made?
A Way Out (2018), It Takes Two (2021), and Split Fiction (2025). Fares also directed Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (2013) before founding Hazelight.
How does Hazelight maintain such positive workplace culture?
Selective hiring for cultural fit alongside technical skill, small team size enabling direct relationships, clear creative vision, and granting designers significant autonomy while maintaining directorial coherence.
What makes Hazelight’s games unique?
Exclusive focus on two-player cooperative experiences with constant mechanical variety, brief memorable moments prioritized over recycled mechanics, and split-screen technical excellence maintaining 60 FPS throughout.
Who publishes Hazelight’s games?
EA through the EA Originals program, which funds development while allowing studios to retain IP rights and creative control unlike traditional publishing deals.
Is Hazelight working on a new game?
Yes, development began following Split Fiction’s March 2025 launch, though no details have been revealed beyond Fares being “fully-focused and excited” about the project.
What does the Formula One car comparison mean?
Fares uses the metaphor to describe Hazelight’s optimized efficiency after 10 years of refinement – every component working perfectly, accumulated expertise enabling speed without sacrificing quality.
Conclusion
Josef Fares’ Formula One car metaphor captures something essential about Hazelight Studios that transcends typical game development narratives. This isn’t a story about crunch culture producing great games despite human cost, or passion justifying exploitation. Instead, it’s rare example of studio where workplace happiness, technical excellence, and commercial success align rather than conflict – proving that treating developers well isn’t charity but competitive advantage.
The 83-person team where “everybody is nice” produces Games of the Year not despite their culture but because of it. Passion emerges from healthy environment rather than being demanded from burned-out workers. Clear vision enables efficiency without stifling creativity. Ten years of focused iteration builds expertise that competitors can’t easily replicate even if they wanted to.
Whether other studios can learn from Hazelight’s model remains questionable – Fares’ strong creative leadership, EA Originals’ unusual partnership structure, and decade of cooperative specialization create advantages that don’t easily transfer. However, the core lesson holds universal truth: perfection isn’t single achievement but ongoing refinement process, and Formula One cars drive fast because every component is optimized, not because drivers push broken machines harder. In game development as in racing, sustained excellence requires engineering excellence, team cohesion, and relentless commitment to improvement. Hazelight’s F1 car drives perfectly. Most studios haven’t bothered building F1 cars at all.