They could be considered the chosen ones of the two giants of consoles and video games. And Valladolid-based Pentakill Sutdios, launched in 2021, is the only one in Castile and Leon recognized as a partner by SONY and Microsoft, and has development kits for the latest PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.
At first glance, this may seem trivial and unimportant, but nothing could be further from the truth, as the company’s CEO David Lorenzo explains to Ical, detailing that the consoles sold to the public are “captive” and do not allow certain features, so special versions are needed where new video games can be developed and tested at the same time and benchmarks can be created, Ical reports.
He admits that these development kits are in short supply, given that large companies are reluctant to give these permits and systems, so he states that they should have been audited and analyzed to confirm their optimal condition and the validity of their work. and trajectory. Thus, he reveals that his star work, the video game “The Occultist”, which is in development and is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2025, may be available on the consoles of these two firms.
Despite this, he says that having these kits allows us to offer these services to other companies that lack them but need them to advance their development, making this another business opportunity.
As part of his portfolio of services, Lorenzo commented on the so-called “Advergaming”, which is an advertising technique that is based on the promotion of brands through video games in order to create brand awareness and appeal. This was the case with his collaboration with the restaurant chain Foster Hollywood, where a video game designed for mobile phones was developed for a Halloween promotion.
For this, the design of all the establishments of the network in Spain was changed, considering that the user and the customer could focus from their mobile phone, being in the video game, on different parts of the design and different scenarios of augmented reality installed with the holiday. , Ical details.
Training and employment
As a preliminary step to Pentakill Sutdios launched iVisual, a school of animation and digital art, also located in Valladolid, which since 2014 has offered various master’s degrees in 3D animation, digital illustration and video game creation in Unreal Engine and Unity, among others. . 370 students have already been trained in this graphic design and programming center.
David Lorenzo says they are open to new hires and increasing their current workforce of 25 employees, although they are focusing on two specific areas, such as 3D animators and video game programmers, a very scarce and unknown profile in Spain, he adds.
