The Chinese Room

Mods (2007–2009)

Thechineseroom's first three projects were two mods for Half-Life 2, named Antlion Soccer and Dear Esther, and a Doom 3 mod titled Conscientious Objector. The modding project was backed by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Of these, Dear Esther became a cult hit. In 2009, Thechineseroom developed Korsakovia, which was a survival horror mod.^[3][4]

Games (2009–2017)

After Korsakovia, Thechineseroom worked with Robert Briscoe to develop a remake of Dear Esther, this time as a full-fledged video game title, distributed through Valve Corporation's Steam distribution service. This stand-alone version of the mod received several IGF nominations, such as the Seamus McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Visual Arts and Audio, and the Nuovo Award.^[5] It finally won for Excellence in Visual Art.^[6] The remake featured improved graphics, but was based on the same engine as the previous mods, Source. The game was released in early 2012 and recouped its $55,000 investment in less than six hours of release, when 16,000 copies of the game were sold.^[7] One week after launch, the game reached 50,000 copies sold.^[8]

In February 2012, Thechineseroom announced that they began development on Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, a survival horror game and indirect sequel to Amnesia: The Dark Descent. This project was produced by the makers of the original game, Frictional Games.^[9][10] It was later released on 10 September 2013.^[11]

Thechineseroom also began work on their newest title, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture alongside the development of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.^[12] During that time, on 12 July 2013, they renamed themselves from Thechineseroom to The Chinese Room. Initially developed on PC, the team was afraid it would not receive enough funding from fans. They instead partnered with Sony Computer Entertainment's Santa Monica Studio to produce the game. It was re-revealed at Gamescom 2013 during Sony's conference as a PlayStation 4 exclusive. The title was finally released on 11 August 2015.^[13]

Downsizing (2017–2018)

In late July 2017, The Chinese Room's directors, Dan Pinchbeck and Jessica Curry, laid off the entire staff—at that point what amounted to eight people—and ditched their Brighton office for home. They cited the lack of ability to pay their staff during the interim between projects as the reason for the closure, and expressed their intentions that the studio itself was still running without the development team, with Pinchbeck and Curry working on prototyping and acquiring funds on their own time. The company released a VR title, So Let Us Melt, for Google Daydream in September, which was the final project of the former studio. Pinchbeck, Curry, and Andrew Crawshaw were working alone on the studio's next project, 13th Interior, which will push away from the "walking simulator" model the studio has been known for up to this point.^[14]

On 14 August 2018, Sumo Group, the parent company of Sumo Digital, acquired The Chinese Room for GB£2.2 million, making it the fourth UK-based studio under Sumo Digital. Co-founder Pinchbeck took the role of creative director for Sumo, while Curry will continue on as a independent composer for the studio. Pinchbeck described the acquisition as "the end of a chapter" for the studio as they determine their next project.^[15]