Portal's 2023 in review

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Somehow, it’s December, folks; how did that happen? As is traditional at this time of year, we’re taking some time to look back and reflect on everything that’s happened here at Portal.

And what a year it’s been. We’ve collaborated with Paradox Interactive and Avalanche Group and welcomed new partners, including Thunderful Games and Generation Media. And we’ve even found time to give ourselves a brand makeover and enjoy some trips out of the office. 

But let’s start by highlighting the terrific projects our partners have released over the last 12 months.

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Portal's proud partnerships

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It’s been an incredible year for our friends at Paradox. The team released a crop of very well-received, high-profile games, including Age of Wonders 4, The Lamplighters League, Star Trek: Infinite and, of course, Cities: Skylines II.

We had the honour of partnering with Paradox on all their titles this year. You can read more about our involvement over on our work page. For now, let’s take a look at the story behind each of the Swedish publisher’s 2023 releases.

Age of Wonders 4 was first out of the gate, releasing on 2 May and enjoying fabulous reviews. PCGamesN’s reviewer Ian Boudreau called it “undoubtedly the best 4X game I’ve played in years”. Shacknews described it as “one of the best grand strategy games in ages”. 

The players backed up the critics. Steam has over 9000 user reviews, with the 4X strategy game achieving a Very Positive overall rating. Sales have been exceptional, too, with the game becoming the franchise’s fastest-selling edition, shifting 250,000 copies in less than a week.

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In October came The Lamplighters League, a fresh take on the turn-based tactics genre with a distinctly pulpy feel. The game attracted plenty of fans who adore it. “An excellent blend of Indiana Jones and XCOM,” said one Steam reviewer.

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Hot on its heels was Star Trek: Infinite on 12 October, bringing the depth of Stellaris and fusing it with the legendary sci-fi IP—an unbeatable combo. Many critics agreed. GameGrin’s Tina Vatore awarded it 10 out of 10, describing it as “one of those games that you can play for 400 hours and you’ll still find something new.” 

Paradox had a busy October, culminating with the much-anticipated release of Cities: Skylines II on the 24th. Pre-release excitement translated into launch success. On its first day, the city-builder reached over 100,000 concurrent players, catapulting it to the top of the Steam best-sellers chart. 

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In addition to new releases, Paradox is famous for the post-launch support it gives their games. Regular updates, extensive expansions and free-to-play weekends are the norm for most of their titles. 

2023 was no different. Here’s the list of Paradox games that benefitted from DLC or a significant sale:

• Prison Architect
• Victoria 3
• Stellaris
• Surviving the Aftermath
• Cities: Skylines
• Europa Universalis IV
• Crusader Kings III
• Age of Wonders 4
• Hearts of Iron IV

Our ongoing partnership with Paradox meant that we supported and amplified the messaging for each of these titles with video ad suites, display banners and a whole lot more.

Building long-term relationships is what we’re all about. And we’re delighted that household names Avalanche Studios, Fatshark and Raw Fury have continued to place their trust in us in 2023.

The Avalanche team have done terrific work supporting theHunter: Call of the Wild with regular expansions and content drops. This year was no exception, with the release of the Emerald Coast hunting reserve and the adorable labrador retriever DLC.

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From hunting to fishing. We also supported Avalanche's console launch of Call of the Wild: The Angler with a raft of display banners, video ad suites and ads for placement on social media channels. 

Ok, strictly speaking, this one is from 2022, but it’s Christmas, so we’ll allow it. Fatshark rewarded their dedicated Warhammer: Vermintide 2 community with daily giveaways last December via their Gifts of the Wolf-Father advent calendar, which we lovingly designed for them. The calendar was an instant hit with Vermintide’s audience.

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Speaking of hits, the Raw Fury team look like they’ll have one on their hands this Spring with Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley. The highly anticipated melodic adventure game uses music from Icelandic band Sigur Rós and composer Oda Tilset. Our team produced a compelling video for the game, combining interview and gameplay footage, that was shown at the Save & Sound online music festival.

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New partners

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2023 saw us forge new partnerships with some of the biggest names in games. Our collaboration with Generation Media led us to play key roles in projects from CI Games, Asmodee and Wizards of the Coast. 

Working to a tight deadline, we created pre-order and launch assets for Lords of the Fallen, published by CI Games. The hardcore RPG went on to sell 1m copies in its first ten days.

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Partnering with Asmodee allowed us to produce out-of-home ads for the globally loved Dobble. The team was so impressed with our creations that they extended the campaign to include a suite of digital ads for social media channels. 

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‍Magic: The Gathering is the original and best-known trading card game. So we were thrilled to produce assets for the release of Wilds of Eldraine, the game’s 97th (!) expansion set.

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Thunderful Games has been making waves in the industry over the last few years with a string of indie hits. SteamWorld Build is the latest, and we were delighted to support the pre-order and launch campaigns with a suite of video ads for social media. 

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Portal goes big in 2023

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It’s been a big year for Portal as a company, too. We’ve worked on our brand, launched the fancy new website you’re reading right now and entered the world of social media with X, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts.

More importantly, we’ve welcomed some new faces to the team. Andy Applecoe arrived to lead our video team and immediately hit the ground running, producing a fabulous Portal showreel. 

Dean Smith joined us as commercial lead to help further drive Portal’s expansion. And Tom Champion (that’s me, hi) came in as comms lead - writing blog posts like this one and case studies highlighting our brilliant work (if we do say so ourselves).

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We also found time to escape the confines of the office. Josh popped his Gamescom cherry, with Dean taking on the role of tour guide alongside his biz dev duties. The trip to Cologne meant we could support the Paradox team with their superb Cities in the Sky influencer activation for Cities: Skylines II. 

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Earlier in the year, Josh had another chance to meet with the Paradox team as he headed to Sweden to chat business and exchange regional delicacies. Anyone for Cheez Ballz?

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Closer to home, we took a team trip to EGX to check out some of 2023’s releases. We met up with the Generation Media crew for a spot of axe throwing. And we threw some different shapes at Cousin Media’s third birthday party. 

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Industry news

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2023 has been a mixed bag for the industry. On the one hand, there have been some truly exceptional titles released. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur’s Gate 3, Resident Evil 4, Diablo IV, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Street Fighter 6 and Spider-Man 2 all launched this year and appeared to demonstrate that the games industry was in rude health.

That’s only half the story, though - redundancies and studio closures have been rife in the UK and internationally. Ubisoft, Epic, Frontier, Team17, Bungie, Naughty Dog, Unity, Creative Assembly, Embracer Group and many more have all laid off staff this year. 

Around 9000 people in the games industry lost their jobs in 2023. It’s unclear if that’s a record high; complete data for previous years is hard to come by. What’s clear is that the situation for job hunters is critical, and many of those in roles are feeling anxious about their futures.

‍Some analysts are predicting an improvement in 2024, especially regarding investment in the industry. Let’s hope that translates into job security for the people who make the games we all love.

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2024 awaits

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That’s all from us in 2023. We hope you have a wonderful break over the festive period. We’ll return in the New Year with our regular Month in Games feature and several in-depth case studies on our latest projects.

In the meantime, why not join us on X, LinkedIn or Instagram, and let us know how your 2023 went and what you’re looking forward to from 2024.