Double Nice, which regained independence from Xbox Game Studios in July, has unveiled its first post-Xbox sport: Thank You Bus Driver. Studio founder Tim Schafer declared in a current interview that his studio will preserve making bizarre video games prefer it and Keeper, as nobody will be capable to shut down Double Nice apart from him.
In August, the San Francisco-based studio unveiled a brand new label known as Double Nice Motion Labs. Impressed by current indie hits like Peak, Double Nice Motion Labs will concentrate on smaller-scale titles that may be shortly introduced and launched for gamers. Thank You Bus Driver would be the first sport launched underneath that label, and it matches the invoice completely.
Thank You Bus Driver is a unusual tackle a transportation simulator sport the place gamers must chaotically decide up and drive passengers whereas additionally being attentive to what they’re doing and slapping them in the event that they break a rule. It is one thing I can not think about Xbox Recreation Studios publishing anymore, making it an ideal declaration of the sorts of video games neo-Double Nice is concerned about creating.
What else can we anticipate from Double Nice sooner or later?
Past Thank You Bus Driver’s announcement, it has been an enormous week for Double Nice. Its documentary and sport jam Kickstarter marketing campaign for Amnesia Fortnight 2026: Indie Reboot has already surpassed its funding aim. Proper now, backers are voting on which pitches Double Nice will work on in the course of the sport jam, with certainly one of them changing into an formally launched sport. Some Double Nice builders are additionally celebrating, promoting merch, and displaying off Thank You Bus Driver at PAX West this weekend, too.
A port of Keeper was additionally shadow-dropped onto PS5 earlier this week during a State of Play, marking Double Nice’s first post-Xbox launch. In a Bloomberg interview about all of this, Tim Schafer additionally made some daring statements concerning the studio’s future, proclaiming that he has no plans to close down the studio and can by no means let anybody however himself management that call.
“Nobody places Double Nice out of enterprise apart from me. [Xbox CEO] Asha’s not going to shoot my canine. I’m going to shoot it. However I’m not going to shoot it as a result of it’s going to do nice. Lots of people need to stroll the canine.”
Whereas this new period for Double Nice is already starting, it is already shaping as much as be a really entertaining one. Thank You Bus Driver doesn’t have a launch date proper now and is just slated to launch on Home windows PC.