{"id":1138799,"date":"2026-02-05T05:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T05:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=531631"},"modified":"2026-02-05T05:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T05:21:17","slug":"before-making-returnal-and-saros-housemarque-starred-in-a-great-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/before-making-returnal-and-saros-housemarque-starred-in-a-great-documentary\/","title":{"rendered":"Before making Returnal and Saros, Housemarque starred in a great documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In February, Housemarque closed out Sony\u2019s State of Play presentation<\/a> with a trailer for its next game, Saros<\/em><\/a>, a big new original game that builds on what the studio made with 2021\u2019s Returnal<\/em>, generating plenty of excitement and positioning the team as one of Sony\u2019s premier first-party studios.<\/p>\n

Years before any of that kicked off, though, Housemarque was a small, independent team working on arcade-style shooters like Resogun<\/em>, Dead Nation<\/em>, and Matterfall<\/em>. During the production of one of those, 2017\u2019s Nex Machina<\/em>, the studio let a documentary team in to film the process.<\/p>\n

The game \u2014 a collaboration with Defender<\/em> and Robotron<\/em> designer Eugene Jarvis \u2014 reviewed well but underperformed and marked a turning point for the studio<\/a>. And the documentary, The Name of the Game<\/em>, ended up being one of the best looks at game development on film, capturing a team living through uncertainty just before that turning point.<\/p>\n

In an effort to spotlight game-related books and documentaries, Polygon is running an email interview series with the people behind them. A little over a week ago, we connected with Julian Rignall<\/a> about his not-quite-an-autobiography The Games of a Lifetime<\/em>, and this week we\u2019re chatting with The Name of the Game<\/em> co-director Paul Vogel about what it was like filming with Housemarque back then, what he thinks of Saros<\/em>, and whether he\u2019d want to do it all over again.<\/p>\n

Polygon: I know we\u2019re a number of years out now since <\/strong>The Name of the Game<\/em><\/strong> was released, but how did it come about in the first place?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul Vogel:<\/strong> It was actually a pretty funny coincidence \u2014 and even slightly embedded into the documentary itself! One of the producers, Jirka Silander, ran into one of the main characters, Mikael Haveri, on a tram. They had known each other since childhood but hadn\u2019t seen each other in ages. They got talking, and it turned out Mikael was working at Housemarque, which was about to embark on its first self-published game. They were even considering launching a Kickstarter for the project.  <\/p>\n

Mikael knew Jirka was part of our small production company, New Dawn, which, at the time, focused heavily on commercials. The two set up a meeting that brought me and their social media manager, Tommaso De Benetti, into the conversation to discuss a potential pitch video for the Kickstarter campaign.  <\/p>\n

After sitting down with them and realizing that one of the leading modern arcade developers was teaming up with Eugene Jarvis \u2014 one of the most prominent arcade legends of the \u201980s \u2014 it quickly became clear that there was a much bigger story to tell than just a Kickstarter video. We proposed following them around with cameras for a while to get a better sense of what that story could be.  <\/p>\n

Fast forward several years, and our feature-length documentary, The Name of the Game<\/em>, was born.<\/p>\n

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