Rockfish Games has secured an €8 million federal grant for the next title in its Everspace franchise, marking the biggest single award yet disclosed under Germany’s games funding system and giving fresh momentum to a sector that has pushed for more stable state backing. The Hamburg studio said the money will support development of a new Everspace project, while industry coverage in Germany said the grant is due to be paid over five years.
The award comes as Berlin expands support for game developers after a volatile period in which studios complained that stop-start budgeting made long-term planning difficult. Germany’s games industry association said the federal government’s draft budget set games funding at €88 million for 2025 and €125 million a year from 2026, a level the group argued was needed until broader tax-based incentives are introduced. That shift has been treated by developers as an attempt to make Germany more competitive with better-established production hubs in Europe and beyond.
Rockfish said the grant was awarded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, now the ministry responsible for the programme. Coverage of the award described it as the largest grant yet given to a German game developer through the scheme. The studio’s chief executive and co-founder, Michael Schade, said the funding would help expand the ambition of the next Everspace game, support hiring and strengthen the company’s ability to remain independent while building for a global audience.
The size of the award also underlines how far the programme has evolved. Material describing the federal funding framework says support is available as a non-repayable grant for prototype and production work, generally covering as much as 50% of eligible costs, with a lower threshold of €300,000 and an upper limit of €8 million per project. Rockfish’s grant therefore appears to sit at the ceiling of what the current framework allows. That cap matters because it indicates Berlin is now willing to support larger-budget domestic productions rather than focusing only on early-stage prototypes or smaller independent releases.
For Rockfish, the backing is strategically significant. The company has built its reputation on a space-combat series that began with the original Everspace and broadened with Everspace 2, which moved the franchise away from the roguelike structure of the first game towards a larger open-world action role-playing format. German technology outlet Heise reported that Everspace 2 entered early access in 2021 and launched in full in April 2023, later winning a major German games award. The same report said Schade had put the budget for the next Everspace game at about €20 million, suggesting the federal contribution would cover a substantial, but not majority, share of the project.
That mix of public and private financing goes to the heart of a broader debate in Europe over how to build game studios that can keep intellectual property, skilled jobs and tax revenue at home while still competing internationally. Rockfish has argued that most of its revenue comes from outside Germany and that, as an independent self-publishing company, it keeps profits taxable in the country. For policymakers, that makes grants easier to defend politically: they are framed not only as cultural support, but also as industrial policy aimed at exports, high-skill employment and technology development in design, engineering, visual effects and audio production.
Yet the larger story is not one of uncomplicated triumph. Germany’s industry has long complained that, despite being one of the world’s largest consumer markets for games, it has lagged rival jurisdictions in production incentives. DLR Projektträger, which has described the state’s games support architecture and its implementation, said the federal government first launched a games development funding programme in 2019 to keep more development capacity in the country. It also noted that most games used in Germany come from abroad, a mismatch that policymakers have sought to address for several years. The political argument for support is therefore clear, but so too is the pressure for consistency: developers need confidence that funding will not be curtailed midway through multi-year production cycles.
The award comes as Berlin expands support for game developers after a volatile period in which studios complained that stop-start budgeting made long-term planning difficult. Germany’s games industry association said the federal government’s draft budget set games funding at €88 million for 2025 and €125 million a year from 2026, a level the group argued was needed until broader tax-based incentives are introduced. That shift has been treated by developers as an attempt to make Germany more competitive with better-established production hubs in Europe and beyond.
Rockfish said the grant was awarded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, now the ministry responsible for the programme. Coverage of the award described it as the largest grant yet given to a German game developer through the scheme. The studio’s chief executive and co-founder, Michael Schade, said the funding would help expand the ambition of the next Everspace game, support hiring and strengthen the company’s ability to remain independent while building for a global audience.
The size of the award also underlines how far the programme has evolved. Material describing the federal funding framework says support is available as a non-repayable grant for prototype and production work, generally covering as much as 50% of eligible costs, with a lower threshold of €300,000 and an upper limit of €8 million per project. Rockfish’s grant therefore appears to sit at the ceiling of what the current framework allows. That cap matters because it indicates Berlin is now willing to support larger-budget domestic productions rather than focusing only on early-stage prototypes or smaller independent releases.
For Rockfish, the backing is strategically significant. The company has built its reputation on a space-combat series that began with the original Everspace and broadened with Everspace 2, which moved the franchise away from the roguelike structure of the first game towards a larger open-world action role-playing format. German technology outlet Heise reported that Everspace 2 entered early access in 2021 and launched in full in April 2023, later winning a major German games award. The same report said Schade had put the budget for the next Everspace game at about €20 million, suggesting the federal contribution would cover a substantial, but not majority, share of the project.
That mix of public and private financing goes to the heart of a broader debate in Europe over how to build game studios that can keep intellectual property, skilled jobs and tax revenue at home while still competing internationally. Rockfish has argued that most of its revenue comes from outside Germany and that, as an independent self-publishing company, it keeps profits taxable in the country. For policymakers, that makes grants easier to defend politically: they are framed not only as cultural support, but also as industrial policy aimed at exports, high-skill employment and technology development in design, engineering, visual effects and audio production.
Yet the larger story is not one of uncomplicated triumph. Germany’s industry has long complained that, despite being one of the world’s largest consumer markets for games, it has lagged rival jurisdictions in production incentives. DLR Projektträger, which has described the state’s games support architecture and its implementation, said the federal government first launched a games development funding programme in 2019 to keep more development capacity in the country. It also noted that most games used in Germany come from abroad, a mismatch that policymakers have sought to address for several years. The political argument for support is therefore clear, but so too is the pressure for consistency: developers need confidence that funding will not be curtailed midway through multi-year production cycles.
Topics
Gaming