Scarily Great Games, Created Together 

This spooky season, we asked three specialists from unique disciplines across our business to tell us the jump-inducing titles that inspired them to join the games industry, and highlight a Halloween-themed project they were particularly proud of. 

From breathing new life into murderous multiplayer mayhem, to fashioning a dark fairytale, and developing devilish characters, each expert offers an intriguing insight into the action-packed, fantastical and occasionally gruesome games they’ve worked on at Room 8 Group—along with the fascinating problems they’ve solved for some of the industry’s most successful software houses. 

The developer 

Worked with Behaviour Interactive on Dead by Daylight 

“The first horror game I remember loving was Doom 3,” says Yoan. “It was an extremely advanced and pretty scary game when I was little. But even back then, I was most fascinated by how games were made. As a kid I spent hours in web cafes looking at PC games, debugging them, extracting information. I got kicked out quite a few times from doing that!” he laughs. 

“Nowadays when I play, I still get distracted by tech stuff. In co-op games my team will be doing an objective, and I’m just there sat in a corner crouching to look at textures. I’m like, ‘Oh, what is this? How did they do that?’ My friends go: ‘What are you doing? We have a game to play!’” 

“As you can imagine, my role here at Room 8 Group is perfect for someone who gets distracted by these things,” he smiles.

“It brings together art and engineering, which is unique to our company but it’s great for our clients because they get an expert that has one hand in both specialisms.” 

It’s a role Yoan has thrived in on many titles over five years here—not least in contributing to the success of gory live service multiplayer title Dead by Daylight.

“It’s an online game that launched in 2016 and has regular updates with new content and maps,” explains Yoan. “Behaviour Interactive sought our help to provide fresh perspectives and offer clever solutions that could improve their old tech and boost their in-game effects. 

“I did that on the project for around a year and helped deliver a number of enhancements. Mostly I focused on creating modifications to the engine, like improving the speed of some of the post processing effects, and creating additional render pipelines to facilitate new effects. 

“For instance, I created a few systems for directable wind to update the gameworld to feel as dynamic as possible,” he explains. “That included prototyping a system to move the grass and trees, and prototyping a new skybox system to create multi-layered skyboxes with more dynamic lighting. I’m really proud of how it turned out.” 

Asked about the overall experience, Yoan is unequivocally positive. 

“It was amazing. Behaviour welcomed us like part of their team from day one and there was so much mutual respect. I also learned a huge amount working on a cross-platform title which comes with a lot of technical challenges—something I’d never experienced to that degree previously. 

“I love complicated stuff that I understand more and more as I work with it,” he says. “For me, the more technically challenging a project like that, the better.” 

More on Dead By Daylight: Art portfolio | Case study 

The cinematics art director 

Karyna Khoroshailo, Stylized Character Concept Art Director, Room 8 Studio 

Worked with Compulsion Games on South of Midnight 

Many artists speak figuratively about putting a part of themselves into their work. But in her seven-plus years with Room 8 Studio, Karyna Khoroshalio has done so literally—not once, but twice. 

“The first time… well, I’ve had many extreme sports injuries and many MRIs because of them,” she explains. “So when I was working on Dead Space in 2021, I decided to use my own MRI for some of the necromorph scans. You can see them in several locations across the remake’s medical deck!” 

“The original Dead Space was one of my first horror game loves,” she continues. “It’s a lifetime dream to work on titles like that, and I get to work on projects of that level regularly. I feel incredibly lucky getting to do something I’m so passionate about every day.” 

That passion has taken her from joining Room 8 Studio as a mid-level artist in 2017, to her current position as Stylized Character Concept Art Director—a role she landed in time to work alongside Compulsion Games on the action-packed Xbox dark fairytale South of Midnight. 

“Some of my tattoos were the inspiration for the Victorian-style ornaments in the game. But the main part of my work on South of Midnight was art direction for the game’s storybook animation cutscenes. 

“I created the visual style of the book inside and outside, page layouts , fonts and illustrations that our team then worked with to produce the entire book.

Along the way we worked with our animators on how we could give it the feel of a linocut, with all the small intricate lines and textures moving as intended.

“It wasn’t just as simple as creating static artwork,” she explains. “Because it’s animated, we had to think about the direction of viewers’ eyes while it moves with parallax scrolling, and how to have them focus where we want in the scene without it being too busy. All while the pages are flipping. It was an extremely iterative, collaborative process between artists and animators. 

“It was also fascinating trying to depicting the game’s very detailed characters in our storybook style,” she adds. “Painting Hazel so you could still recognize it instantly as her, with only a few brush strokes, was a challenge. I spent much more time getting that right than you might think. Sometimes the things that look so simple when you see them are actually the trickiest things to do! 

“Working on South of Midnight was really wonderful. The team at Compulsion Games went to the American Deep South to research the project, but at Room 8 Studio our reference points became movies and TV shows, like The Skeleton Key, American Horror Story’s Coven season, and Get Out. 

“I’m a big horror film fan too and to bring these passions together as an influence for my work on such a high-profile release was really exciting. 

“I’m playing the game now and it’s just so great seeing my work on the screen,” she beams. “I’ve been going to my friends saying ‘Check it out. I worked on this!’ It’s a big reason I love what I do.” 

More on South of Midnight: Art portfolio | Case study 

The character artist 

Ivan Mayol, Realistic 3D Characters Art Director, Room 8 Studio 

Worked with Blizzard on Diablo IV 

“It was always one of my dreams to work with Blizzard,” begins Ivan. “I grew up playing RPGs like Final Fantasy IX, Lineage II, and especially World of Warcraft. I remember watching the cinematics in all those games and thinking ‘I want to create game characters like those in future.’ 

“I thought the best way to do so was a computing software engineering course, so when I got to university I started that,” he explains. “But it was basically all physics and math, so after one year I switched to studying for a dedicated degree in games creation.

“My final degree project was then an isometric top-down hack-and-slash game heavily inspired by Blizzard’s Diablo. Then years later, when I had been working in the industry a while, I joined Room 8 Studio specifically to work alongside Blizzard on Diablo IV. It’s funny how things work out sometimes!” 

 Ivan’s passion was evident. Within only five months he was promoted to Room 8 Studio’s lead artist on the project—a role that eventually led him to his current role as Director of our realistic 3D characters division. 

“A major part of my role became building up the team,” he explains. “We started with just three artists and over two-and-a-half years grew to around 20, with me working to find people with suitable artwork and gothic themes in their portfolio. 

“I also led on creating a solid basis of artistic visual elements that were important for the project. For example, fashioning a color palette that matched Diablo’s type of horror, and guiding artists on how to add visceral elements like blood, and guts, and maybe rotting flesh, in a way that contrasted with the rest of a character—while fitting the feeling and look all the characters needed to have. 

“It’s still the most precious and inspiring thing I’ve worked on in my career,” he confides proudly. “I came from working on military titles, so the new art style was initially a challenge, but I grew so much professionally, and learned an incredible amount about the importance of building a team who are comfortable sharing knowledge between each other. I was such an individualist before I came here, but I developed hugely from sharing my experience and guiding the team to do the same.” 

And how was it finally working with Blizzard? 

“It was a blast!” smiles Ivan. “But more than that… I really felt the sense of responsibility, you know? 

“I used to be that kid, looking forward to playing these games; dreaming of growing up to make them. Now I think about the next kid who’s out there, desperate to play the games I’m helping to make; excited to see the characters I’ve created.

If that can bring them joy the same way game art always did for me, I’ll feel really humbled.” 

More on Diablo IV: Art portfolio | Case study 

Frighteningly effective at bringing great games to life 

At Room 8 Group, the passion and skill of our people across development, cinematics, art and more allows us to support on projects of all styles and sizes. 

If you need an external team to help make your new release a reality, whether it’s horror, fantasy, action, or another genre entirely, we can help. Let’s talk. 

Or if you’re a dev, designer, animator, artist or engineer looking for your next gig in the games industry, check out our open roles.