French game developer Drama Studios has raised $2.5 million in seed funding, and plans to put that money toward its debut title, the bodycam shooter Unrecord.
The bulk of that funding comes from VC firm The Games Fund. It’s a lot of money at a time when funding for games has been dwindling, in turn leading to layoffs and closures for studios, regardless of their size.
Drama says the funding will help “strengthen” its core development team. Once its game is in a “solid” demo state, it’ll explore publishing and “strategic partnership opportunities.”
Unrecord puts players in the role of a tactical police officer solely from the perspective of his body camera. In real life, actual body camera footage is used as evidence of police brutality, which led many to label the game a “cop simulator.”
At the time, Drama explained to PCGamer that the actual game would be more in line with a detective thriller, but also acknowledged that people would “feel disturbed by the game’s images.”