Spry Fox, the studio behind the Cozy Grove series and in-alpha Spirit Crossing, will soon land back in the hands of co-founders Daniel Cook and David Edery. According to Game File, the move appears in keeping with Netflix’s changing priorities, evidenced as well by the shutdown of an internal studio known as Team Blue last year. Spry Fox appears to have a more hopeful fate. Netflix has reportedly sold the studio back to its original creators, though exact details on the sale are scarce.
Spirit Crossing is described as a “beautiful cooperative life-sim about building friendships and community” and is currently in alpha testing. The title will remain in development, with Netflix publishing and Spry Fox reportedly free to shop it around to other platforms as well.
Spry Fox was founded in 2010. The studio saw early hits like Triple Town and Alpha Bear, followed up by Cozy Grove (and later, its sequels via Netflix). Spirit Crossing has been in the proverbial oven for “well over four years”, according to the game’s announcement post this past spring.
The team was effusive about the support the streaming service provided in its blog about Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit, noting:
“In all honesty, being part of Netflix has been a huge relief for us. As you may or may not be aware, starting sometime around 2022, the video game industry was taking a very serious turn for the worse (economically-speaking). Our industry has been experiencing its most serious downturn in decades. All around us, studios are doing layoffs or, worse, shutting down entirely. To call this “dispiriting” would be a severe understatement… we have been very worried about our friends in the industry…
Meanwhile, Netflix has given Spry Fox more support and encouragement than we’ve ever experienced before. We now have the resources to make the games we want to make, on the timetable we want to make them, with very few compromises.”
