Independent German game development studio welevel announced that it raised $5.7M USD in seed funding, led by BITKRAFT Ventures.
The investment allows welevel’s lean development team to expand their innovative AI tools that streamline game development and create dynamic, personalized gameplay.
welevel also announced plans to expand their development team twofold for their upcoming AAA sandbox survival game. The project began development in 2021 using welevel’s in-house generative models and is set to enter early access next year.
Additional participants include BMWK (DLR), goodwater, and angel investors Chris Carvalho (Board Member Roblox), Daniel Weinand (co-founder of Shopify), Heiko Hubertz (founder of Bigpoint), Kun Gao (co-founder Crunchyroll), Mario Götze, Nate Mitchel (co-founder Oculus), Ralf Reichert (co-founder of ESL), and further games industry executives.
welevel is a fast-growing studio building AAA games driven by passion, not monetization.
To compete with giant game companies, welevel leverages AI to streamline production, without making compromises on quality and creativity. The studio’s AI technology innovates on world-building, NPC behavior, and quest generation, through sophisticated algorithms that make interactions tailored to each player. This system allows for adaptive storytelling where players’ choices shape the world in unexpected ways, providing a truly dynamic experience.
“We are huge fans of survival games and open-ended sandboxes, but when we looked for a game in those genres that matched the scale of massive AAA experiences, we came up empty-handed. AAA development needs a massive amount of resources and budget which both indie game studios usually do not have. Having used AI in my former companies, I recognized the potential it has to empower small, passionate teams to produce games.
In the past four years, our team has engineered tools and an AI platform that allow us to not just rival AAA studios, but surpass them with a living, breathing world. With BITKRAFT, we found a partner who shares our passion and vision. Our development process is unique, and with it, we can create the game of our—and many players’—dreams.”
Christian Heimerl, Founder and CEO, of welevel
welevel’s first game
welevel’s debut game presents a paradigm shift for the sandbox survival genre by introducing a living world that responds, evolves, and challenges players in ways that have never been done before.
The game surpasses traditional resource management systems by creating a dynamic relationship between player and environment. NPCs are lifelike, remembering the context of in-game actions, forming relationships, and assisting in player goals.
Other conventional survival systems like building and trade are enhanced through generative processes, giving players greater freedom to construct the worlds they desire.
“Chris brings a unique combination of serial exits, technical depth, and exceptional audience understanding. While it is a tall order for an emerging studio to take on AAA ambitions in a large genre, especially in the early stages of AI adoption in gaming, we believe that lean teams who rethink development and break current limitations in time and scope will unlock unprecedented gameplay and distribution vectors.
welevel, having established remarkable technological foundations over 4 years with only a handful of developers, is making creative decisions at rapid speed and marginal cost. Their fun, playable prototype already features extensive gameplay systems, high visual polish, and an experience that can capture players for over 100 hours.”
Jasper Brand, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures
Beyond their initial project, the team has plans for expansive user-generated content and aspirations to expand into other genres and settings.
