Moon Beast Productions nets $4.5 million to 'redefine' ARPGs

Indie studio Moon Beast Productions has secured $4.5 million in seed funding.

The investment round was led by 1AM Gaming with backing from 1UP Ventures, The Mini Fund, Overwolf, Versus Ventures, and a network of angel investors such as Gaingels, Cohh Carnage, and Mark Pincus.

Moon Beast was quietly established in 2021 (before breaking cover in 2022) by industry veterans Phil Shenk, Peter Hu, and Erich Schaefer, who previously worked on Diablo and Diablo II at Blizzard.

The studio is based in San Francisco and will use the cash injection to expand its team and finance its debut project, which is billed as an "innovative Action Role-Playing Game (ARPG) that challenges conventional design paradigms." Although it intends to make new hires, Moon Beast stated it will maintain a "lean, focused approach" to production.

"In today's challenging funding environment, we're incredibly fortunate to have investors who understand our vision," said Peter Hu, president and co-founder, in a press release. "Our approach has always been about working smarter, not just harder. We're building reusable, data-driven systems that allow us to iterate rapidly and create more with less."

Moon Beast CEO Phil Shenk said the company wants to reinvent ARPGs by prioritizing freedom and replayability to expand what players can expect from the genre.

Chief creative officer Erich Schaefer explained that means creating more open, dynamic worlds by leveraging the latest technology. Moon Beast will also deploy in-game tools that allow players to build user-generated content, including entirely new game modes.

"We finally have the technological capabilities and decades of design experience to bring those visions to life," added Schaefer. "We're going back to what made those early Diablo games feel so awesome but taking them in some cool, fresh directions."