Newfound Courage

Be gay. Destroy evil. Save the world.

Xbox Port

A promo image for S.W.A.P, a first-person shooter developed by Sydney based Game Development Studio Chaos Theory Games

Newfound Courage is a narrative-focused action-adventure game about a gay hero who falls in love with his best friend while the world unravels around them.

Alex's story starts in the strange cliffside town of Silverpine that is home to The Vault, a mysterious institute containing the knowledge of a long-dead civilisation.

Alex must explore The Vault's many mysteries and help the colourful townsfolk he meets along the way, while learning to understand and accept his feelings for another young man named Jake.

We were presented with

The Challenge

Café Empty originally launched Newfound Courage in 2018 on PC. They wanted to port it to Xbox in time for Pride Month in June 2022.
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The client approached us to complete the Xbox porting and certification process so that the game was ready for release on next-gen Xbox consoles.

That became

The Solution

Plan for Compatibility

Xbox has specific requirements for how data is saved and how the controller influences the game. We started with this new functionality to ensure that all certification requirements were met before moving on to quality assurance and optimization.

The port was completed alongside the new DLC, so the Xbox remake was the first to receive the new combat update.

Newfound Courage is playable on next-gen consoles, the Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

Photograph of an Xbox One and Controller by Microsoft

Screenshot from the video game Newfound Courage by Café Empty. Available to play on Xbox and PC

Efficient and Constant Testing

We worked closely with the client to understand their vision for the console remake. Our team conducted functionality and compatibility tests on the game to identify what problems needed to be solved.

We developed an internal Xbox requirements validation process to confirm all of the criteria prior to submission.

This resulted in a quick approval time of less than 2 weeks from submission to green light.