Ubisoft has left Halifax, Alpha Dog was shut down, and NSCC is ending its game programs. Nova Scotia’s video game scene looked out of lives. Now laid-off developers are starting their own studios, betting on small-budget games and stories set close to home

Half a dozen years ago, the Nova Scotia video game industry seemed to be on the cusp of something big. HB Studios, based in Lunenburg, was making high-profile sports games, gaming giant Ubisoft had opened a Halifax studio, and local indie studio Alpha Dog had just been sold to another heavyweight—Maryland-based Bethesda Softworks.

In a story published on its website in 2020, Invest Nova Scotia called the Alpha Dog acquisition “a great success story for a Nova Scotia business.” Darryl Wright of the Interactive Society of Nova Scotia is quoted as saying, “That [Bethesda] purchased Alpha Dog Games… highlights the high quality and talent of Nova Scotia’s game developers. We’re not just contributing, we’re leading.”

Jon Huffman, one of the co-founders of the new Halifax-based independent game studio Phantom Rowboat, remembers that time: “The state of the video game industry 10 years ago—it definitely felt like it was aggressively growing,” he says. Kira Wigg, another of the company’s founders, says that even five years ago, “It felt a lot more like hustle and bustle. Everyone was so busy, and there was so much work, and so many opportunities. Now it’s definitely slowed down… There’s a lot less hustling to try and get a job at one of the big companies. Now we’re figuring out a way to make a place for ourselves in the industry.”

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