Frozen Flame Head Serge Korolev Carries Modding Spirit Into Survival-RPG
Games like The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Minecraft have thrived for over a decade thanks in-part to an endless wellspring of community content. Plenty of experiences have been affected by mods and ROM hacking, from replacing Resident Evil 2 Remake's Mr. X with Thomas the Tank Engine to the sea of custom «Kaizo» Super Mario World hacks. Dreamside Interactive founder Serge Korolev, who heads development on Frozen Flame, started his journey in the industry with modding over 15 years ago.
Skilled modders have long been a valuable commodity. CD Projekt Red hired modders to work on Cyberpunk 2077, for example, and Australian programmer Christian Whitehead became so well-known for his Sonic the Hedgehog projects that he began working with Sega on ports and titles like Sonic Mania. Korolev said his years working on mods and smaller projects were all preparation for his goal of making PC games. Game Rant spoke to Korolev about Frozen Flame's development and recent widespread exposure.
Half-Life 2 Mod Makes Ravenholm Look Like Silent Hill
Korolev cut his teeth on freelance modding projects for games like Half-Life and Warcraft 3 in the mid-2000s. «Anything that can be modded had our attention,» he said. The developer would then work on publishing games like NCSOFT's Lineage 2 in Russia with Innova Distribution, and became «one of the first Unity 3D developers» in 2009 using a modded version of the software to help create browser-based Russian MMO Juggernaut (jugger.ru).
In the 2010s, Korolev focused more on producing and founded two studios: Arigama and Magisterion; startups centered around social and mobile games, respectively. All the while he tried working on indie games, but found «I couldn't make projects with enough quality
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