How NewGen is taking Tunisian indie games global
For Seifeddine Ben Hamouda, the question facing NewGen Studio is no longer whether a Tunisian game studio can make games for a global audience. West Hunt has already answered that. The more pressing question is what comes next.
Founded in Tunisia in 2016, NewGen Studio has spent the past decade building games from North Africa, learning through failed projects, finding an international audience, and establishing a track record on Steam. Now, the studio is looking towards the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE emerging as potential locations for a new branch.
The move is less about abandoning Tunisia and more about connecting NewGen to a rapidly developing GCC gaming ecosystem, particularly when it comes to investment, networking and opportunities to scale.
As Ben Hamouda puts it, NewGen’s original vision was “to try to create something in Tunisia from Tunisia,” at a time when Tunisia was not widely viewed as a destination for game development.
A decade later, that ambition has produced a studio with international experience and a very different set of priorities.
NewGen's journey from Tunisian startup to global indie developer
NewGen’s early years were ambitious, perhaps excessively so. Ben Hamouda describes the studio’s initial mindset as that of a young team trying to compete at a scale well beyond its resources. The company spent roughly five years developing Class: Mutants vs Spies, a MOBA inspired in part by games such as Paladins and Overwatch.
Looking back, he calls it “the biggest mistake and the best mistake we made.”
The project ultimately taught NewGen a lesson that would shape its future approach to game development. A large project does not automatically have a better chance of success. Genre, timing, mechanics, and the ability to generate interest among creators can matter just as much.
“YouTubers and influencers are your best allies,” Ben Hamouda says, describing one of the realities that became increasingly important to NewGen as an indie developer. That lesson became particularly valuable in 2021, when the studio had only around three months of runway left.
The answer was West Hunt, a social deduction game built around outlaws and sheriffs. NewGen secured a publishing deal with Snail Games, and the game subsequently gained traction across YouTube, TikTok, and other social platforms.
“We made it. So far, we sold about 450,000 copies of West Hunt,” Ben Hamouda says.
Since 2021, NewGen has continued making PC games for Steam. Some projects have performed better than others, but West Hunt remains the studio's biggest commercial success.
That history matters when considering why the company is now looking at the GCC. NewGen is not approaching the Gulf as a first-time studio looking for its first investment. It is looking for ways to build on an established foundation.
Why Saudi Arabia and the UAE?
Ben Hamouda has been watching the development of the wider MENA gaming market closely, with particular attention to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.
“These countries are going to the next level. They are investing in small studios. They are bringing other studios to the region. They are serious.”
For an independent developer, that investment creates opportunities beyond simply finding money to produce another game. A growing ecosystem can mean access to investors who understand games, industry events, publishers, developers, government-backed initiatives, and potential business partners.
That ecosystem effect is particularly relevant to NewGen because Ben Hamouda identifies specialist gaming investment as one of the biggest gaps facing the studio in Tunisia.
NewGen has previously raised money from generalist venture capital firms, but game development presents a different investment proposition from that of a conventional technology startup. A studio can spend years developing an entertainment product without the kind of problem-solution framework that traditional venture investors often expect. “We're just delivering entertainment,” Ben Hamouda says.
His preference now is therefore for growth-stage capital from investors who understand the economics and risks of games. “Right now, we have a nice track record, we have a nice team, we understand what we are doing. So we are not looking for pre-seed or seed funding, but we are looking to grow and to scale.”
NewGen is not simply looking for somewhere else to start again. It is searching for an environment where an established indie studio can accelerate.
Expansion, not relocation
For now, NewGen is not planning to uproot its Tunisian base. Instead, Ben Hamouda is considering establishing a second presence in Saudi Arabia or the UAE.
“As a studio, actually, we are considering not fully relocating, but we have this idea of opening another branch in the KSA or UAE,” he says.
Saudi Arabia appears to be the more immediate focus. The idea is still relatively new, with Ben Hamouda saying he had started actively researching the possibility only shortly before the interview and had already prepared a pitch deck and begun contacting investors. His interest has also been shaped by seeing the development of Saudi studios first-hand.
At Gamescom 2024, he encountered small Saudi teams exhibiting at the NEOM booth. At the time, some were still at the ideation stage. Two years later, he says, those studios had secured significant funding to help them scale.
“You can see from this example that in 2 years, what you can achieve in Saudi Arabia, you can't achieve here in Tunisia, unfortunately.”
For NewGen, that experience offered a practical example of how quickly a studio can move when capital, institutional support and a developing gaming ecosystem come together.
A North African studio looking south
The GCC expansion idea also reflects a broader shift in how NewGen sees its identity. Ben Hamouda does not want the studio's Tunisian roots to disappear as it grows. Quite the opposite. He sees a future where NewGen could operate across both countries, retaining its Tunisian development base while establishing a department in Saudi Arabia.
That model could eventually turn geographic distance into an advantage. Tunisia provides the studio's existing foundation and talent base, while a GCC presence could provide access to investors, events, partnerships and a wider regional network.
The distinction matters because Ben Hamouda does not see Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt as incapable of building meaningful game-development industries. He specifically points to Morocco's activity around Gamescom and says Egypt is also making progress.
The opportunity, in his view, is to create stronger connections between those communities and the rapidly expanding Gulf ecosystem. That starts with developers themselves. “I see small studios here in Tunisia. The problem is that we are not linked. We are not connected to each other,” he says.
A more connected MENA development community could make it easier for studios to exchange knowledge, find partners, understand markets and collectively build international visibility.
NewGen's next phase is about scale
There is a clear target behind the expansion plans. Over the next five years, Ben Hamouda wants NewGen to produce two or three additional successful indie games, with his definition of an indie success being a title that generates at least $200,000 on Steam. He also wants to triple the studio's current team.
That makes access to growth capital particularly important. It also explains why NewGen's GCC ambitions are tied to more than funding. The studio wants to be part of the network developing around games in Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf.
Ben Hamouda's own advice to younger developers reflects the lessons NewGen learned the hard way. He argues that small studios need to think like indie studios rather than trying to imitate the scale of Rockstar Games or CD Projekt Red from day one. “You have to be an indie studio first and think as an indie studio.”
He also stresses the importance of marketing and publishing, areas that developers can overlook when most of their attention is consumed by production. “For me, I learned that maybe 60% of your job should be directed to marketing and publishing,” he said.
That philosophy fits the current Steam market NewGen operates in, where Ben Hamouda describes fast-moving genre trends and short windows for developers to respond to emerging opportunities.
Building a bridge between Tunisia and the Gulf
Perhaps the most interesting part of NewGen's proposed expansion is that the studio does not view success in Saudi Arabia as a replacement for success in Tunisia. Ben Hamouda's long-term ambition is much more connected than that. “I want to prove that we can succeed even from Tunisia,” he says.
His ideal future involves NewGen operating across both markets, with teams in Tunisia and Saudi Arabia working together.
“For me, being an indie successful studio from Tunisia that can scale and can be in two countries, for example, in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, we have two departments working together, and showing the world that it's an Arabic North African studio that could make it. For me, it's like a dream.”
West Hunt has already given him a glimpse of that possibility. A Tunisian team created a game centred on the American frontier and found an audience around the world. “We did it by Tunisians here, and we made it go viral worldwide.”
For NewGen Studio, the GCC represents a route towards that next stage. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are building gaming ecosystems that can offer capital, connections and opportunities for studios ready to scale. Tunisia, meanwhile, remains the place where NewGen began and where its development journey continues.
The future Ben Hamouda describes sits between those two worlds. “I took it personally, like succeeding from this region, I took it personally. I refuse to fail,” he stated.
If NewGen can turn its Saudi expansion plans into a functioning two-country operation, it could offer a compelling model for MENA game development itself: a North African studio using the Gulf's rapidly growing ecosystem to scale internationally without leaving its roots behind.
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