Firefly, best known for the Stronghold series, has taken its next step in the games industry by branching out into publishing. The company unveiled a new label, Wuselfaktory, dedicated to strategy titles, and introduced its inaugural release, Fool King, during the UKIE For One Night Only showcase earlier this year.
Fool King, created by first‑time developer Loot Donkey, markets itself as a tactical autobattler with a roguelike twist: players assemble and position their forces, then sit back while the combat resolves automatically. The decision to become a publisher, according to studio head Nick Tannahill, mirrors a broader trend among indie studios that are looking for additional revenue streams.
“It’s like every other indie developer right now,” he told GamesIndustry.biz, but he added that Firefly’s long‑standing expertise in the strategy niche gives it a distinct advantage. The label joins a lineage of successful strategy publishers such as Paradox Interactive and the newer Hooded Horse, though Firefly is approaching the market with more modest ambitions regarding both the scale of individual projects and the total number of releases it plans to support.
For Fool King, Firefly is providing the development funds and handling the marketing push, while its parent company Devolver has assigned a producer to oversee localisation and quality assurance. Tannahill hinted that, as the publishing arm matures, Firefly intends to bring those localisation and QA responsibilities in‑house, leveraging its existing team of roughly fifty staff members. “We already have a small publishing crew, which is why we can do this,” he explained. Firefly’s publishing experience is built on a decade of self‑publishing, a period during which the studio refined its localisation pipelines, marketing processes, and relationships with platform holders.
Over the years, the company has also cultivated deep knowledge of strategy game design, allowing it to offer development assistance beyond the typical publisher‑developer liaison. “One of the real benefits a publisher can bring is that we’ve been on the other side of negotiations and relationships, and we can also help with actual dev work,” Tannahill said. In practice, this support has already manifested for Fool King. The title includes an asynchronous online component, and Firefly’s team has held regular calls with Loot Donkey to discuss networking implementation, UI design, and overall game balance.
Multiple rounds of feedback have been exchanged, and while such involvement does divert time from Firefly’s own projects, Tannahill believes the trade‑off is worthwhile. “An hour‑long conversation can accelerate a project dramatically and make the development smoother for the partner studio,” he noted. The push into publishing was encouraged by Devolver, which recognized its own limited experience in the strategy segment. After Firefly was acquired by Devolver in late 2021, the larger publisher reportedly urged the studio to leverage its strategic know‑how.
“They basically said, ‘You know strategy, we don’t. Why don’t you fill that gap?’” Tannahill recalled. This external encouragement dovetailed with Firefly’s habit of scouting promising indie strategy games.
In fact, Tannahill discovered Fool King through a Rock Paper Shotgun article rather than a formal pitch process. To stay inspired for future Stronghold titles, Tannahill spends time playing smaller strategy games on platforms such as Steam and Itch.io. “I look at tiny titles for fresh ideas—anything that can spark a new mechanic or theme for our own series,” he said. When he encounters a game he likes, he considers whether it could benefit from funding, guidance, or a partnership, which is precisely the role Wuselfaktory aims to fill.
Devolver has deliberately given Firefly autonomy over both the sourcing of titles and their marketing. The parent company admits it lacks deep connections within the strategy community, so it relies on Firefly’s established relationships with press outlets, content creators, and niche sub‑genre audiences. Tannahill emphasised that speaking the language of strategy fans is essential. “Our audience expects us to understand their terminology and preferences,” he explained.
Firefly maintains a close feedback loop with its players by embedding short surveys into every demo it releases. The surveys ask participants how much they would be willing to pay, which features they desire, and what future games they would like to see. Over the course of three separate titles, the studio has collected roughly 6,000 responses per survey, providing a robust data set that informs design decisions and marketing strategies. This approach has revealed an unexpectedly youthful demographic: a significant portion of the player base falls between 18 and 25 years old.
Consequently, Firefly tailors its outreach to the social platforms favoured by that age group, aiming to draw younger gamers into its IPs and studio ecosystem. Tannahill views the strategy genre as both expansive and under‑served. “If you look at the top‑hundred‑plus wish‑listed games on Steam, many of them are strategy titles,” he observed.
Yet classic franchises such as Command & Conquer receive little new development, not because the intellectual property lacks appeal, but because few studios are investing in fresh entries. This gap, he believes, presents a lucrative opportunity, especially as higher‑profile genres encounter market headwinds.
“Strategy isn’t the flashiest genre any more, but it quietly dominates Steam’s sales charts,” Tannahill said. In an era where platforms like Roblox are exploding and console sales are plateauing, he argues that Steam remains well‑positioned for deep, systems‑driven experiences that reward long play sessions and emergent gameplay. The success of newer publishers like Hooded Horse underscores the untapped demand for high‑quality, niche strategy games. Internally, Firefly is spreading its bets across several sub‑genres to avoid over‑reliance on a single formula.
The studio continues to develop 2.5D isometric titles reminiscent of early Command & Conquer and Age of Empires, while also working on fully 3D projects such as Stronghold 4. The resurgence of pixel‑perfect isometric graphics has proven popular, but Tannahill cautions against assuming the trend will last indefinitely. “You want to diversify your basket without loading too many eggs into one slot,” he remarked.
At present, Wuselfaktory’s catalog consists of a single external title, Fool King, with the potential for a few more modest releases in the near future. Since joining Devolver, Firefly has shipped four games and six expansions, with additional projects in development. While third‑party publishing is part of the long‑term vision, the studio acknowledges its capacity limits. “We won’t announce a label and then flood the market with three fully baked games—we can only spin so many plates at once,” Tannahill concluded.
“We’ll start with smaller titles, work in compact teams, and keep the operation sustainable—that’s the key.”