Stoke Games

A new studio with a veteran roster

Stoke Games presents itself as a new independent studio dedicated to making peak experiences for players, with a stated ambition to craft enduring multiplayer games that challenge people. It is a young company, and its About page offers no founding date, so the clearest picture of what it is comes from its team page and its first game rather than from a corporate history.

The team page is where the studio makes its case. It says its staff have worked across League of Legends, Valorant, Disney Infinity, StarCraft 2, MultiVersus, Hogwarts Legacy, Destiny and Call of Duty, among others. For a studio with one released game, that is an unusually decorated list, and it is clearly meant to signal an experienced group rather than a first-time team.

Who is on the team

The listed leadership includes Veigar Bouius as studio director, who the page says led teams on League of Legends and later worked on product for MultiVersus and on strategy at WB Games. Andrew Spiering is listed as engineering director, with StarCraft 2, World of Warcraft and the Unity engine on his record before a technical lead role at Riot Games.

The rest of the public roster leans on art and engineering. Josh Black is listed as senior concept artist, with Disney Infinity and Hogwarts Legacy at Avalanche Software and more recent work on MultiVersus. Romain Clesse, a principal environment artist, contributed to Fae Farm at Phoenix Labs. Linda Pansodtee is listed as a principal software engineer and Evan Altwarg as an associate test engineer.

What Tyr is

Tyr is the studio's first game and its main focus. It is a free-to-play multiplayer tank shooter in which players pilot heavy armoured vehicles, each with its own distinct ability, and battle for objectives with a team. The official line is that strategy beats twitch reflexes: running and gunning is punished, while careful positioning and deliberately placed shots are rewarded.

Vehicles can be upgraded between matches, and the game is built around third-person combat with a futuristic, stylised look. Steam's user tags describe it as action, free to play, indie, strategy and vehicular combat, with a team-based PvP focus. The studio frames Tyr as an alternative to shooters where reflexes decide most fights.

Into Early Access

Tyr entered Steam Early Access on 2 September 2026, developed and published by Stoke Games. At launch the studio said the Early Access build was stable and fully playable, with more than twelve unlockable tanks and five maps. It expects the game to stay in Early Access for about twelve months before a full release.

The studio has been explicit that Early Access is a development method rather than a label. It says it began testing with external playtesters five months into development and wants player feedback to shape balance, systems and content. It also committed to keeping Tyr free to play, with all gameplay content unlockable without paying, while selling a paid Founder's Pack for early supporters.

What has changed since launch

The studio has kept updating the game. In late September 2026 it added Core, an urban-style map, made squad sizes fully flexible so players can queue in groups of up to eight, and let players create or join clans without going through Discord. The same update included a round of tank balance changes and new cosmetics.

The cadence is part of the pitch. A free-to-play multiplayer game lives on a steady stream of content, and Stoke Games has paired its updates with an active Discord and a YouTube channel. Player reception on Steam has been positive, with the store page showing a very positive rating across several thousand reviews.

Why a tank shooter, and why free

Vehicle combat is a crowded but oddly expensive corner of multiplayer shooters, and most of its best-known names ask for a full-price purchase or a subscription. Tyr takes the opposite route: free to enter, with progression and cosmetics as the business. For a new studio that is a bet on breadth of audience rather than on a single upfront sale.

It is also a bet on a specific kind of player. By designing around positioning and ability use instead of reflexes, Stoke Games is chasing people who want deliberate, tactical matches rather than fast arcade action. Whether that audience is large enough to sustain a free-to-play game is the question the studio's next year of Early Access will answer.

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• Tyr

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