It Takes Two sold over 20 million copies and won GOTY, but Hazelight’s Josef Fares says “all the numbers looked really, really bad” before the co-op studio became “this really big developer”

Josef Fares – founder of Hazelight Studios and director of game of the year winner It Takes Two, as well as the massively popular Split Fiction – looks back on his past games and tells us their “numbers” really weren’t good.

“Here’s the thing: there was always a big, big risk in the beginning,” Fares says in an interview with the Edge newsletter. “But I have extreme confidence in what we do. I trust in the core [of the idea]. Brothers, A Way Out, It Takes Two – all the numbers looked really, really bad. Now it’s different, because we’ve kind of become this big developer, but still, with those early games, I just felt like, ‘The core is great, I just know it.’ So, trust in your vision, and go with it fully. Don’t back away from that.”