Last week Dino Patti, co-founder and former CEO of celebrated Limbo and Inside developer Playdead, revealed he was working at a new studio on a new game called Somerville.
Before then Patti had maintained almost complete silence since his sudden and largely unexplained departure from Playdead last summer. He sold his shares to former business partner Arnt Jensen and diplomatically walked away. But when I caught up with him at Gamelab 2017 in Barcelona last week he was prepared to say a little more.
“There was some kind of fallout,” Patti admitted. “It is kind of delicate. It’s also combined with other personal reasons. I really like Playdead, it’s something that’s deep in my heart. I love the people there, they’re still my friends. I’m on speaking terms with 98 per cent of the people there…
“For me it was just time to do something else. I found a way to do it in a way where I could do whatever I wanted afterwards.”
Patti reportedly left Playdead with $7m.
Patti and Olsen’s working relationship began around the time Inside launched, in summer 2016. Patti thought the game Olsen was making, Somerville, looked good, so offered advice as a kind of mentor. “In the end I just came to the conclusion that I want to help this,” he said. “I want to ensure that this vision gets protected and it gets out.”