A new indie publisher has been established in Frankfurt, Germany – Artex.
The new venture rises from the ashes of a developer of the same name, which created Ankh: The Tales of Mystery and other titles in the late 1990s. It was also the predecessor of publisher Deck13, which “emerged from the core team of Artex Software in 2001, initially under the name TriggerLab, and took off as Deck13 in 2002.” It hopes to support indie studios during their “start-up phase.”
“Back then, we developed games under the name Artex. More than a quarter of a century later, we want to discover and support young studios and start-ups in particular, because we see an incredible amount of creative potential here”, explains Jan Klose, co-founder of Deck13 and the indie publishing label Deck 13 Spotlight, now co-founder of Artex.
“Additionally, fair conditions and supporting business development are extremely important to us when working with others. With Artex, we are starting a whole new chapter.”
The publisher’s inaugural projects will be available at Gamescom later this year, including Pithead Studio’s console version of RPG dungeon crawler, Cralon. Artex is also working with Sigma Unit, Freedom Burger Games, Borb Games, and Weltenwandler Designagentur and Sebastian Grünwald.
Piranha Bytes’ Björn Pankratz and Jennifer Pankratz founded Pithead Studio last year after the Embracer-owned Piranha Bytes was shut down in June 2024.