Indie games studio Spry Fox has had a wild couple of years: After being bought up by Netflix back in 2022, it was bought back by its founders ahead of the 2025 holiday season, in a story that seems to be a lot more common these days as megacorps forget why they even wanted to be in the games business. Through it all, the Cozy Grove studio continued work on what it had originally called a “non-violent MMO project” now named Spirit Crossing. Today, the studio has posted a dev blog explaining what’s going on with the game – and the studio – as it marches toward its Steam launch.
“Nearly 50 people are currently working on Spirit Crossing, mostly full-time, some as part-time contractors or co-developers through partner studios,” Spry Fox co-founder David Edery says.
“To make this work, we’re also making real sacrifices. All of us are taking large pay cuts. Daniel and I have reduced our salaries to $20,000/year, and we’ve spent our own cash to buy the studio back. And we are taking all the equity in the new company and giving the majority of it to the rest of the studio’s employees. In a world where executives tend to make 10x the salaries that employees do, and have 100x the equity, we want Spry Fox to be an example of something fairer and hopefully much better. More than ever, we are all in this together.”
In the short term, all this means a public beta coming this spring with a full launch later on in 2026.
“We’re making a big bet: that a lot of people are hungry for a game about self-expression, friendship and community, built with intense respect and affection for everyone who plays it,” Edery writes. “Our goal for 2026 is straightforward and very personal to us: launch a big, ambitious cozy game that brings people together, encourages kindness, and reduces loneliness in the world. A game literally about building a village together.”
In case you’re wondering, the press copy is now calling it a “multiplayer life-sim” but still tagging it as both “MMO” and “massively multiplayer,” so do with that what you will. Either way, the game seems as cozy as the studio.
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