Hello, we’re Nightmarket Games! Formerly known as Epic Story Interactive as of today. Today marks a new chapter for our company. Here’s why.

Epic Story Interactive started in October 2017, but prior to that we were a team embedded in animation studios: Nerd Corps Entertainment in 2009 before being acquired and moving to DHX Media in 2015. We’ve had many names over the years! Epic Story Interactive was the first name we chose for ourselves, and we were proud of it. It was the first time we felt we were truly us.

Like any fledgling enterprise, we were still finding our way during our first 5 years as Epic Story Interactive. At first, we stuck to what we knew by developing mobile games based on huge entertainment brands, like Beyblade Burst Rivals and Ben 10 Heroes. Then we stepped out of our comfort zone by exploring new game genres, platforms, and original IP. We released the roguelike bullet heaven game Rift Rangers for PC in 2023.

We learned how to walk, toddle, and run in 5 years as an indie studio. We got a clearer idea of what we value, what drives us, and how we want to make games. Going full remote during the pandemic forced us to codify our culture. We rethought how we communicated with each other. We re-examined our approach to work, our business strategy, and our desire to continue making games. We imagined what the next five years would look like.

We enjoyed our new independent spirit, but the desire for a new name and identity pawed at us. Sometimes, it flickered in annoyance when typing the long email address. Other times, we’d swallow hard when mistaken for a much bigger studio with a similar name. “No,” we’d say with a small smile, “We don’t make that game.” But most of the time, we dreamed of making a truly special game that represented and built on the growth we had experienced together as a team.

We love the Epic Story name, and we love our sister companies (Epic Story Media and Epic Storyworlds, and all the others without Epic Story in the name, like Freeground!) But after a years-long process of defining our values, our purpose, and our culture, it made sense to find a new name. We longed for a name that evokes the same feelings and emotions that we sow in our games. Despite being completely remote, we wanted a name that acknowledged our origins in Vancouver.

We found it. Nightmarket Games. It’s perfect!

Night markets are a quintessential Vancouver experience dating back to the turn of the millennium. Vancouver is a diverse mixture of cultures, and our team was no different. The night market was a rich experience of community, food, and strange products hawked by vendors. You’d find stuff you’d never imagine seeing this side of the Pacific Ocean. The air was often thick with a smorgasbord of aromas wafting from the crowded food stalls.

That’s the vision we have for our games. We want players to feel they belong in a world rich with pleasant surprises (or surprising pleasantries). We want them to experience awe and wonder. They can be the hero of their own story. And those stories can have commonalities when shared with other players who have experienced it. That’s how communities are made.

I was asked whether anything else changes with the name change. Has the vision and mission changed? What will we be doing differently? My initial response was no, and not because those things aren’t happening. It’s because we’re too close to the changes. We don’t experience their flow as discrete moments in time. It just feels natural to us, as if this is how we’ve always been.

But if you’re reading this, then you probably haven’t experienced that change like we have. You’ve seen us, from the outside, in isolated moments when our name popped up over the last six years. So please allow us to introduce ourselves to you once again:

We’re the developers of well-loved mobile games based on popular entertainment brands. We’ve worked with many great companies over the years and hope to work with many more. Our games have over 100 million downloads. We love putting smiles on faces.

Hello! We are Nightmarket Games!