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Bloober Team’s path to a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive was not a sudden change of direction. The Polish studio first needed a public proof point, and Silent Hill 2 Remake supplied it. The game’s reception reversed years of skepticism and showed that Bloober could be trusted with a major horror property. CEO Piotr Babieno then explained the business philosophy behind the turnaround: retain knowledge, protect the team and make decisions for a company expected to last decades. That combination made Nintendo’s support for Onyx: The Dark Grip credible.
Silent Hill 2 Remake was the reputational turning point
Before Silent Hill 2 Remake, Bloober Team was often treated as a risky choice for a high-profile horror project. The remake changed that perception. Its strong reception validated Konami’s decision to entrust the series to the Polish studio and produced what GamesRadar described as a reputational “180.”
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The significance was larger than one well-reviewed release. Bloober became easier for platform holders and publishers to evaluate: it had demonstrated that it could work inside an established creative world, meet the expectations attached to a famous property and deliver a finished horror game at major scale. That endorsement turned the studio from a speculative partner into a credible horror specialist.
This is why the remake matters to the Switch 2 story. Nintendo was not simply choosing an unknown team to make an experimental exclusive. It was backing a studio whose most visible recent project had already restored confidence in its craft.
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What Babieno means by a “Japanese approach”
Babieno’s phrase describes an operating model, not the company’s ownership or nationality. Bloober is a publicly traded Polish company. He uses “Japanese approach” as shorthand for prioritising institutional knowledge, continuity and long-term stability over maximising the result of the next release.
“For us, it was never a one-shot. It was never that we would like to create a game, and that’s it. It’s [about] the long run, and so we would like to build not just the next successful title, but a successful and very stable company.”
— Piotr Babieno, Bloober Team CEO
In practice, that philosophy changes how Bloober evaluates projects and staffing. Management asks whether a project can be pursued without creating a future need for layoffs, whether the same knowledge can remain inside the studio and how a decision affects the entire team rather than only the game currently in production.
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“We are a publicly traded company, so business is very important. But I think that even more important is to keep knowledge inside of the company. If we would like to build the company for decades, not just for the next few years, we need to build the DNA of the company and the team.”
— Piotr Babieno
That approach rejects the cycle in which a developer expands for one project, cuts staff after launch and loses the expertise needed for the next one. It also means Bloober may decide not to make a particular title if the staffing consequences would threaten the wider company.
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“So we always are making decisions by thinking, ‘okay, are we able to do this without cutting staff in the future?’ Because if we need to cut anyone, maybe it doesn’t make sense. Maybe we are able to do this in a different way. Maybe we don’t need to make this particular title. It’s always the question of how it will impact the whole team.”
— Piotr Babieno
Babieno has also cited Nintendo president Satoru Iwata’s warning about fear inside a workforce: “If we let go 5% of our team, 95% will live with the fear.” For Bloober, retaining people is therefore a production strategy as well as a cultural preference. A stable team preserves tools, design knowledge and lessons from earlier games.
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Babieno’s relationship with Nintendo predates Bloober’s current success. He says he founded Poland’s first website devoted exclusively to Nintendo and an online store selling Nintendo consoles and games. Bloober itself was originally formed around making horror games for Nintendo platforms. Its first Wii project, Sadness, never reached completion, but the original ambition helps explain why a Nintendo-specific horror project was not an arbitrary pivot.
The remake’s reception supplied the missing credibility. Nintendo has historically approached third-party horror cautiously, so a platform-specific project required confidence in both the team and the game’s design. Nintendo’s direct support for Onyx indicates that confidence was practical, not merely promotional.
“Without the support of the incredible people at Nintendo, this game would never have had a chance to exist. Their trust guided and empowered us at every step of the journey.”
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— Piotr Babieno, discussing Onyx: The Dark Grip
What Onyx: The Dark Grip is
Onyx: The Dark Grip is the new name for the project previously known as Project M. Bloober Team is developing it, while its internal label Broken Mirror Games is publishing it. The game is exclusive to Nintendo Switch 2 and is designed entirely around handheld play rather than being a conventional console game that also happens to run on the system.
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Touch controls are central. Players use the Switch 2 screen to unlock doors, read the minds of non-player characters and move objects. The premise places the player in the role of a supernatural force manipulating a lone traveler. Nintendo summarises that relationship as: “Survive as a vessel and interfere as a god.”
The traveler reaches a desolate ghost town, where the player manipulates the environment, solves puzzles and confronts creatures while trying to stop the puppet from descending into madness. Babieno has positioned the project for people who enjoy Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Limbo and Eternal Darkness, but the touch-first design gives it a hardware-specific identity rather than making it another standard multiplatform horror release.
As of October 17, 2026, the available announcements do not establish a release date or price for Onyx: The Dark Grip. Those details should not be inferred from the Switch 2 exclusivity announcement.
Cronos: The New Dawn shows the strategy between the remake and Onyx
Bloober’s original third-person survival-horror game Cronos: The New Dawn provides the clearest shipped example of the studio’s broader plan. It launched on September 5, 2025, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC.
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- Meet and befriend more Pokémon as you help nature flourish.
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The game alternates between a ruined future and 1980s Poland. Its defining threat is that enemies can merge with nearby corpses unless the player burns the bodies, turning every encounter into a resource-management decision rather than a simple fight.
SEGA’s official release also established a three-year partnership beginning at launch to oversee boxed and digital distribution for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 in Japan and South Korea. Bloober identified those markets as important because of strong gaming culture and collector demand for high-quality physical editions.
| Project | Role in Bloober’s development | Partner or market signal | Platform strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silent Hill 2 Remake | Reputational proof | Konami’s trust was validated by the remake’s reception | Established Bloober as a dependable major-project developer |
| Cronos: The New Dawn | Original intellectual property | SEGA handled Japan and South Korea distribution under a three-year agreement | Released across PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2 and PC |
| Onyx: The Dark Grip | Hardware-specific experiment | Direct Nintendo support for the project | Switch 2 exclusive, built for handheld touch interaction |
How the pieces fit together
- Bloober earned a visible quality signal. Silent Hill 2 Remake changed the conversation from whether the studio was a safe choice to whether it had become a specialist worth trusting.
- Management framed stability as a production advantage. Babieno’s policy of retaining knowledge and avoiding avoidable staff cuts gives the studio a reason to reject unsustainable one-off opportunities.
- Nintendo’s historical connection with Babieno became relevant again. His long-standing Nintendo focus and Bloober’s original platform ambition made the relationship more than a cold business introduction.
- The partnership produced a game designed for one machine. Onyx uses the Switch 2 touchscreen as part of its core horror mechanics, giving Nintendo a project that depends on its hardware rather than merely launching on it.
- Cronos demonstrated execution in the meantime. Its release and Japan-focused distribution partnership showed that Bloober could support an original property and work with a major commercial partner while pursuing the Nintendo project.
What the “Japanese approach” does—and does not—promise
The philosophy is not a guarantee that every Bloober game will succeed, nor does it mean the studio has abandoned commercial priorities. Babieno explicitly says business remains important for a publicly traded company. The distinction is the time horizon: revenue and releases are judged against the health of the team and the company’s ability to keep its expertise for future projects.
That long view helps explain why the Switch 2 exclusive followed a reputational recovery rather than preceding it. Nintendo support was easier to justify after Bloober had demonstrated quality, and Bloober could pursue a distinctive hardware concept without treating the project as an isolated bet. The result is a partnership built on proof, retained capability and a specific creative reason for the platform.
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