Expression Games: quietly making great games

It’s an exciting time for Errol Ismail, CEO of Expression Games, one of the biggest game developers that you’ve probably never heard of. Although Expression has been developing for around three years, most publicly on Hell Let Loose, which it has been managing successfully in a live environment, there has never been an official announcement that Expression Games even exists.

Errol laughs, “I didn’t feel the need to, and then I felt like the point where we should have done it was long past. We were already established, working and growing. It just would have been weird to announce ourselves as if we were brand new.”

Today though, Errol does have big news. By the time you read this, at gamescon in Cologne, Team17 will have announced a 2026 launch for Hell Let Loose: Vietnam. This is the first game that Expression Games has built from the ground up, and Errol is understandably proud of the studio’s work.

The Expression team has already worked on Hell Let Loose: Vietnam for around 18 months, and Errol can finally put his studio in the spotlight. “It’s super exciting for us, quite an emotional moment. There are lots of developers in our team who have never worked on a shipped game before. Even when you’re hardened by 20 years of game development, it’s cool to still feel emotional about it.”

It’s easy to see that Errol’s as excited about the people who’ve worked on the game as he is about the game itself. “I hope when it launches we have critical and commercial success of course, because it will validate how I talk to publishers about our people. It validates everything we’ve done over the last few years: how we build games, how we built the studio and what we stand for as a business.

“We have a young team, and I believe very deeply that a young team can build fantastic games. Vietnam’s the first game as a business that we’re building from start to finish. We’ve still got some time before we’re finished, but I’ve seen very few projects at this point in development with the foundation we have now. It’s up to us to make sure we don’t waste that potential over the final months.”

A people-first, fully-remote studio

Unlike many studios, Expression Games has been built with a vision that starts with the people, rather than the work itself. And that vision comes directly from Errol. Having worked for EA (several times!) and then running Fabrik before it got snapped up by Sony, Errol knew what kind of studio he wanted to build, and the kind of people he wanted in it. His vision was for a remote-working studio which gave everybody the freedom to reach their potential.

“We’re quite unique. We don’t have core hours, you’re just asked to work a set number of hours per day. How that’s divided up is completely up to each individual. It all comes down to trust. When I look at the fundamentals, the culture of Expression, I can see that hasn’t changed. We’ve grown, and it’s clear that we’re not the same studio as we were at first, but the culture and values are still what they always were. We do lose those ‘positive collisions’ you get in a physical studio, and I think that generally, being around other people is healthy, which is why we’re also trying to create a culture where people spend time together.

“We’re lucky in a way because a lot of our talent is based around the core development hubs in the UK. We had a get together in Liverpool a couple of weeks ago, where we had about 15 people just out for some food and a few drinks. We’re trying to do more of that, but it’s tough to arrange regular small events because of logistics and cost. We’re in constant communication though. I think we’ve always been accused of having too many meetings, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing as a remote studio.

“It’s kind of a shame that the Hell Let Loose: Vietnam announcement will be in the middle of gamescon because it means we can’t be together as a studio to celebrate together. But we will be doing that in November. It’s a celebration of three years of Expression, 12 months of development on Hell Let Loose (the original), it will be post-alpha on Vietnam and hopefully another game that we’re supporting will be content-complete then too. So it will be a proud moment to have everyone together to celebrate our success as a studio.”

This commitment to the people in the team is genuine, and Errol’s praise of the talent around him flows naturally. It also goes a long way towards explaining why Expression Games has won back-to-back gamesindustry.biz Best Places to Work awards in 2023 and 2024. 

Just be yourself

So how does Expression Games find its young talent, and decide who is a good fit for the way the studio works? The answer is to track down Errol on LinkedIn and just to be yourself.

“I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, just connecting with people and getting to know them,” he says. “We don’t use external recruiters, never have done. If you look at the team now, plus any attrition, over the past few years we’ve hired maybe 130 people, all handled by the team here. It’s about using our networks and reaching out to people.”

When there’s a position (or 10!) to fill at Expression, Errol doesn’t play by the usual rules.

“My approach to interviews is that I don’t really ask any questions,” Errol admits. “I let my team validate someone’s skills set, capabilities and potential while I just spend an hour trying to get to know the candidate. So I just joke about really, I’m never serious! I want to get to know them as a person, to encourage them to open up. At least one of our interviews is focused on the culture fit. It’s not about what you can do as a developer, or what you can contribute to the business, it’s about who you are.

“The nice thing is that if someone comes into the business and they’re struggling, but they’re the right culture fit, and they’re someone we like who has potential, then we can work through the issues and invest in their skill set. I want to keep giving opportunities to young talent in the UK, talent that other people have overlooked. I want to give them an opportunity here to grow, give them a platform to succeed.

“As a result, we don’t only have a fantastic team of developers, but a team of brilliant people. I think if we can retain the core staff over the next few years, it will position us as one of the strongest development teams in the UK. Certainly one of the top first-person shooter studios in Europe. In the world.” Errol corrects himself.

Rapid expansion

In the three years that Expression Games has been active, it has grown from a launch team of around 30 (primarily made up of Fabrik colleagues), to 113. On Errol’s estimation, that puts them in the top 10% in the UK when it comes to studio size. With the industry not having been at its best over the last few years, seeing layoffs across the world and many well-known studios being shuttered, how has Expression managed to weather the storm so successfully?

As usual, Errol is blunt, transparent and humble all at the same time! “I think what we’re seeing now is how ruthless parts of the industry can be, with redundancies. Other studios have asked me how we’ve managed to keep growing. And you know, a lot of it is luck. We signed projects at the right time that let us retain our people and then grow. We have deep partnerships with the clients we work with.

“But the industry is struggling. We’ve looked across businesses that have made redundancies to see if we can match talent to the open roles we have, to get people back into work, and I think we’ve done a good job of that. But it’s terrifying to see what’s happening across the games industry, especially as an independent business.

“I think one of the reasons we were able to survive so well is because we are so lean. We didn’t have the costs that most other studios do, and that comes back to being fully remote. We save so much money per month. We’ve been able to secure projects because we can operate at a lower rate than some other partners. We’re not having to pay for a lot outside of what we do. We’re actually quite unique in that out of 113 people, there are only three who don’t make games. And I’m one of them.” After being serious for a while, Errol suddenly laughs before he adds, “Although if you ask the team if I make games, they would firmly say ‘Yes’. I think they’re desperate for me to leave them alone and not be involved in it!”

Partners solving problems

Being a lean and agile studio means Expression can react quickly to new opportunities, beating more traditionally structured studios to the punch – we’re proud to say that we’re often a key part of those efforts.

“How many times have I called you, and said ‘I need 30 PCs ASAP!’ and you’ve just said ‘Cool, I’ll call you later on.’ And then I’ll get a text at like 11.30 at night from you saying ‘I’m on it.’ Having Escape beside us is reassuring to me. There’s nothing you’ve said ‘no’ to, even though you probably should have done! I feel a bit guilty about some of the unrealistic demands, but our business changes so rapidly and I know that Escape can make things happen. Whether it’s hardware or software, Escape consistently makes miracles happen.

“Escape has been a strategic partner of both Fabrik and Expression for the last five years. In the last year, we’ve almost doubled in size, and we couldn’t have done that without Escape. When it comes down to it,” Errol continues, “we’re both solving problems for clients. It’s ‘Okay, what do you need?’ ‘Right, let me have a think and we’ll come back with some solutions.’ That’s what we both do. I couldn’t imagine working with someone else. I don’t think anyone else would put up with it to be honest!”

The way ahead: new indies

Looking at the games development industry as a whole, it’s easy to feel pessimistic about the future, but Errol still sees a way ahead as it resets itself after post-COVID growth, unhealthy talent markets and unsustainable salary hikes. “I’m hoping we’ll see a number of new indies starting up in the UK, maybe from people who’ve taken some time away from the industry and now want to build something new. That would be exciting.”

As someone who’s already brought this vision to life, Errol can see where it needs to go. “We need one or two of those businesses to be able to hire 30, 40 or 50 people. It’s not an indie in a traditional sense, you know, more like a Fabrik, independently owned but mature and professional about how it goes about things. It would have a great chance of success with senior, experienced leadership behind it. There will be leaders who know what to build, how to build it and they know how to finance and run a studio. If we can just have two or three studios like that, there’s hope I think.”

Quietly going about its business

Having finally broken the seal with its Hell Let Loose: Vietnam announcement, can we suddenly expect Expression Games in all of our daily feeds? The answer’s one you would expect!

“We’re just quietly going about our work. I’d prefer to show what we do as a studio through software and execution, rather than to post about it on social media all the time. That’s not a criticism of how other companies do it, it’s just not how I want people to think about our business. I’d much rather someone say ‘They treat their people really well and they make great games’, rather than ‘I only know about them because they post on social media all the time.’

“We rarely post because I don’t have the time. We have four projects in development right now. We have Hell Let Loose: WW2, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, a new IP and we’re a co-developer on another project I can’t talk about, so there’s plenty going on behind the scenes. I just want to be known as a hard working and humble studio that makes the best games it can. Having said that, I know it’s a space we need to be doing more in. As long as we’re talking authentically about the business… I do recognise that the team is slightly embarrassed that they work for a company that nobody has heard of!”

With the level of commitment and detail that Expression has put into Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, pretty soon everyone will have heard of Expression Games. “We’ve had a foundation to build on with the first game, and we’ve looked at Vietnam and thought about how we can build on that. We have a deep knowledge of the community, of who our players are and what they expect from the new game. So we’ve done things like worked closely with the Royal Armoury to make our weapons sound and feel like the real thing, we’ve fixed some of the issues that exist in the first game and we’ve brought in new features. I think everything we’ve done will make it a really satisfying period shooter.

“It’s been very hard for me to enjoy the success we’ve had up to now, there’s no time to think. It’s almost like I don’t want to think about it as success because I want that ambition to still drive me. But next week (the gamescon announcement), I will take a moment to reflect and enjoy it. But after that, I’ll just dismiss it, it’ll be gone and I’ll be focused on the new things in front of me.”

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