Hypergryph
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Hypergryph Network Technology Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 鹰角网络), commonly known as simply Hypergryph (HG), is a video game development company based in Shanghai, China. It is known as the creator and developer of Arknights and the publisher of the game's original Chinese version.
Background
Hypergryph was founded on January 24, 2017 by Hai Mao and his colleagues from Yostar and MICA Team (now Sunborn), the latter of which is notable for being the developer of Girls' Frontline. Most of them, including Hai Mao himself, are the alumni of China Academy of Art; later on HG also hired former members of Massive Black and Cygames branches in China.
Yostar played a major part in Hypergryph's founding, where their CEO Yao Meng used part of the money he had from selling his house to invest in HG. Early after their foundation, HG started the development of Arknights, which is the first video game they developed before Ex Astris, and a major success that effectively paid off Yao Meng's investment.[1]
Hypergryph was originally headquartered at 700 Yishan Road on Xuhui District, which is in the same avenue as miHoYo's headquarters — notable for being the developer of Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact, and Honkai Star Rail. In 2020, the headquarters are moved to an underground basement in Changhui Mansion at 799 Yinxiang Road on Nanxiang Street of Jiading District; the new headquarters included resting areas and a quarantine room made due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A popular misconception is that Hypergryph is owned by Yostar, which is not true as while Yostar does own a significant portion of HG's stock of 15%, around 75% of HG's shares were owned by the founding members of HG. However, HG in turn owns 23% of Yostar's shares.
Notable activities
- On June 7, 2021, Hypergryph joined the Anti Internet Backlash Alliance (Chinese: 反网络黑灰产联盟) in Shanghai alongside miHoYo, TapTap, and Shanghai Lilith Technology Co., founded in response to the various backlashes started by the rampant "keyboard warriors" and "toxic" fandoms on the Chinese internet in order to prevent such occurrences from happening again in the future as well as setting up a proto-type of game-rating, a system that is currently not yet implemented by the government.[2][3]
- On September 2021, Hypergryph announced the development of Ex Astris, a third-person single-player action RPG and the first game developed by Hypergryph that does not follow the free-to-play model, as well as their first game that is to be released simultaneously worldwide.[4]
- Ambience Synesthesia marks the first offline event of Hypergryph though it is considered to be under the wing of Monster Siren Records. On November 2021, Terra Discovery Society was held in Shanghai as a small convention with Arknights' fandom creators.[5]
- Like other gaming companies, content leaking is also an issue for Hypergryph. Starting from A Walk in the Dust, some leaked news had circulated among social platforms, especially Baidu Tieba. In March 8, 2022, Hypergryph finally took action by suing one of their employees who was responsible for the leakage.[6]
- In March 16, 2022, Arknights: Endfield, a spin-off of Arknights, was announced. A concept trailer and gameplay vertical slice were revealed on March 18.
Branches
| Branch | Description |
|---|---|
| Studio Montagne (蒙塔山工作室) |
The Arknights development team, founded before the game's development is announced in September 2017, making them the first and oldest branch of Hypergryph. Studio Montagne is also credited as the illustrator of Santalla and Vendela in-game. |
| Nous Wave Studio | The Ex Astris development team, founded before the game's development is announced in September 2021. |
| Mountain Contour | The Arknights: Endfield development team, founded before the game's development is announced in 2021. |
| Gravity Well (重力井工作室) |
A studio that produces various 2D and 3D animations for Hypergryph's games as well as the Lee's Detective Agency: A Day in Lungmen and Kay's Daily Doodles animation series, founded before their first work, the 3D animation trailer of Near Light, is released in November 2021. Note: This studio has no relation with the American game development studio of the same name. |
| Octavedge | A recording label founded in 2021 whose first project being a music group/studio named Cubes Collective, described as intending to "tell stories through cubes" and had released three works: Waves, Kubos, and Melting White. Octavedge is also responsible for contracting music artists in China to produce Arknights music, notably THE EITHER and ZOEE. |
| Popucom | The namesake upcoming game's development team made up of 30 members, founded before the game's development is announced in 2023. |
| Countersurge Salient | Little is known about Countersurge Salient other than implications that they are the development team of the upcoming Sphere of Souls. |
Brands
| Branch | Description |
|---|---|
| CHOEARTH (朝陇山) |
The brand responsible for the production and distribution (in China, as Yostar did so for the rest of the world through their own Yostar Store) of Arknights-related merchandises, formerly known as CH.O3 and established before the release of Arknights CN in 2019. |
| MOUNTEN (一拾山) |
A design brand that had produced several Arknights-themed clothes, established in mid 2020. |
| SKLand (森空岛) |
The official community hub of players of Hypergryph's games in China, established in mid 2022. |
| CoreBlazer (开拓芯) |
An initiative launched by Hypergryph in early 2023 to support indie game developers based in China. Although not acknowledged in the respective game's credits, Affogato and Eternights are among the indie games funded by CoreBlazer. |
| Gryphline | The international/worldwide publishing brand of Hypergryph's games starting from Arknights: Endfield, established in December 2023. In February 20, 2024, Gryphline takes over as the publisher of Arknights' TW server from Longcheng. |
Subsidiaries
- Shanghai Baishen Enterprise Management (上海白神企业管理)
- Hypergryph Talos (鹰角塔罗斯): The subsidiary that owns Hypergryph's premium games (Ex Astris, Popucom, and Sphere of Souls).
- Hypergryph Pioneer (鹰角开拓者): The subsidiary that owns Arknights: Endfield.
- Hypergryph Cornerstone (鹰角基石): The subsidiary that owns the copyright of SDKs used by Hypergryph.
- Hypergryph Explorer (鹰角探索者): The subsidiary that owns SKLand.
- Shanghai Muyuan Network Technology (上海木鸢网络科技): The subsidiary that owns CHOEARTH and the copyright of Arknights merchandises by extension.
- Gryph Frontier Pte. Ltd: The subsidiary that owns Gryphline and based on Singapore.
- Hypergryph Dune (鹰角沙丘)
- Chengdu Hypergryph Dusk-ink (成都鹰角夕墨)
- Hypergryph Coreblazer (鹰角开拓芯): The subsidiary that owns CoreBlazer.
- Octavedge Music (乌柯塔界限音乐): The subsidiary that owns Octavedge.
Games
- Arknights (2019)
- Arknights: Endfield (TBA)
- Ex Astris (2024)
- Popucom (TBA)
- Sphere of Souls (TBA)
Hypergryph also acts as the publisher of Arknights in China.
Notable employees
- Hai Mao
- Wei@W
- Huang Yifeng (黄一峰): The current CEO of Hypergryph, noted as the biggest technology contributor to Arknights. He graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJU) in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and worked in Google after graduation. Huang also joins Yostar (then known as Studio GM) in 2007 where he met with Yao Meng and later Team MICA in 2008 where he met with Hai Mao. After Hai Mao left Team MICA in 2016, he invited Huang to join Hypergryph.[7]
- Rua Niu (RUA牛): Real name Le Junwei (乐俊伟), Rua is the developer, game designer, and former head level designer of Arknights. Like Huang Yifeng, Rua is a graduate of SJU in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science.[7] Rua appears in Arknights CN anniversary livestreams until the 2.5th and has been absent since then; the CN community speculates that he is now the head level designer of another HG project, possibly Arknights: Endfield.
- Fan Rundong (樊润冬): The head developer of Arknights. Like Huang Yifeng and Rua Niu, Fan is a graduate of SJU in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science.[7]
- Da Huang (大黄): Level designer
- Hychio (黑桥): The current head level designer of Arknights which replaces Rua Niu after he became the lead level designer of another Hypergryph project.
- STAR: Company operations director
- William: Game operations director
- Xiang Yangchao (巷陌曹): Merchandise designer
- BREAKLESS: Audio engineer
Gallery
The office of Hypergryph's former headquarters
The lobby of Hypergryph's former headquarters
The office of Hypergryph's current headquarters
The resting area of Hypergryph's current headquarters
Miss Hypergryph, one of Hypergryph's official mascots (see Trivia for more information). Artwork made by BiSHI.
Trivia
- Hypergryph's Chinese name translates to "eagle horn", referring to their logo.
- The name and logo itself are based on the hippogriff, also spelled hippogryph.
- The Arknights community jokingly believes that Hypergryph is in fact a music company due to the game's background music/BGMs, Operator leitmotifs, and songs related to the game which came in a wide variety of genres.
- An actual live concert featuring the game's songs, Ambience Synesthesia, cemented this belief.
- The CN community takes this further by calling HG "Musicgryph (音角)" instead, which is a pun to the hanzi for "eagle" (鹰; Pinyin: yīng) that are pronounced similarly to the hanzi for "music" or "sound" (音; Pinyin: yīn).
- Due to their unnecessary verbous text in their stories cut-scenes, the CN community often jokingly calls it as "Hypergryph's language" (鹰语).
- Hypergryph has an official mascot named Miss Hypergryph (鹰小姐), appearing as a cold yet funny office lady with white, long hair and black horns. She is described to be in charge of the official Sina Weibo accounts of HG and CHOEARTH.
- In April 26, 2020, Miss Hypergryph accidentally posted the advertisement for an Arknights merchandise using HG's account instead of CHOEARTH's. This caused the CN community of Arknights to jokingly refer to Miss Hypergryph as a cute but clumsy lady.
- Recently, Miss Hypergryph has also received a overhauled design, which can be noticed through their Weibo posts in CHOEARTH's account.
- The Global server replaces Miss Hypergryph by a chibi bunny that resembles Amiya.
External links
References
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