In 2021, former senior programmer at Epic Games Terence Burns
joined us as CTO, reinforcing the studio’s core vision of engineering excellence. A commitment that has since earned Tanglewood Games Gold Unreal Engine Service Partner status in both 2025 and 2026. Unreal Engine proficiency has shifted from a nice-to-have to a
genuine necessity in co-development. UE5 now accounts for 31% of all Steam game sales, up from 19% just a year prior - according to Video Game Insights - and more major studios are migrating to the engine every year. The demand for partners who have a truly deep understanding of the engine has never been higher. Tanglewood Games has grown its headcount year-on-year as a
direct result of staying focused. As a studio, we doubled down on our core offering, and that discipline has driven consistent, profitable growth with an international client base. Industry analyst Amir Satvat has noted that while contraction has
hit large studios hard, co-development and external development is one of the few parts of the industry that is actively growing and continuing to hire. Specialist studios build deeper institutional knowledge, faster
pipelines, and a reputation that attracts the right kind of work. For clients, that means proven solutions rather than paying for a partner to figure things out on their budget and timeline. That said, for specialist collaboration to really work at scale, the
industry needs to meet specialists halfway. Co-dev partners need to be brought in earlier, not parachuted in when a project is already in trouble, and pipelines need to be designed with external collaboration in mind from the start. There also needs to be a fundamental shift in how the industry values focused expertise, treating specialist studios as strategic partners rather than interchangeable vendors. However, simply wanting to collaborate isn’t the same as being
set up to do so. Specialists need to connect, co-pitch, and cooperate rather than compete in isolation. They need to be open with data, insights, and team integration in ways the industry has historically
“There also needs to be a fundamental shift in how the industry values focused expertise, treating specialist studios as strategic partners rather than interchangeable vendors.”
resisted. As well as this, standardising the tedious fundamentals, such as engagement terms, tooling, job descriptions, will allow clients to plug them in without friction. The games industry’s future won’t be built by
studios that do everything. It will be built by networks of teams that each do one thing better than anyone else. Specialisation is easy; it’s working as a collective to build these networks that make this new industry model executable at AAA scale, where the bulk of the work lies. This is a conversation Tanglewood Games is already starting and inviting other co-dev studios to be a part of.
NEXT ISSUE: Tanglewood bring us an update on all things Unreal Engine.
May/June 2026 MCV/DEVELOP | 41
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