Avantgarden S.r.l. (formerly Ovosonico S.r.l.) is an Italian

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in Milan. It was founded in 2012 by industry veterans Massimo Guarini and Gianni Ricciardi, sold to

Digital Bros Digital Bros is an Italian video game company that develops, publishes and distributes games. It publishes games under its 505 Games subsidiary brand since 2007 and established video game development school, ''Digital Bros Game Academy'', in 20 ...

in 2020.

History

Before the establishment of the studio, Guarini was the director for Grasshopper Manufacture's ''

Shadows of the Damned is an action-adventure video game developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game follows the story of Garcia Hotspur, a Mexican demon hunter who goes to the City of the Damned t ...

'' and Ubisoft's '' Naruto: Rise of a Ninja''. He also has production credits in games for the '' Splinter Cell'' and '' Rainbow Six'' franchises. After the release of ''Shadows of the Damned'', Guarini decided to move from Japan back to his home country and go independent. He wanted to do something different in life after being in the video game industry for over fifteen years. His approach towards video games is more about trying to connect with humans, not just gamers. Back to Italy, Guarini reunites with his former colleague Gianni Ricciardi, music composer and audio director for ubisoft and other developers. The two founded Ovosonico in 2012, in a villa on

Lake Varese Varese Lake ( it, Lago di Varese) is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, in the north of Italy. It has an area of 14.5 km², a medium depth of 11 m, and a maximum depth of 23 m. It hosted the Canoeing European Championships in 2012, the Wo ...

. In March 2013, Ovosonico announced a partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for the development of a new intellectual property, becoming the first Italian game studio to work with Sony. The game, '' Murasaki Baby'', was announced at Sony's press conference during

Gamescom 2013 Gamescom (stylized as gamescom) is a trade fair for video games held annually at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Since 2018, it has been organised by ''game – Verband der deutschen Games-Branche'' (English: Associa ...

for the

PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international territo ...

. The game was released in North America and Europe in September 2014.

invested in Ovosonico in September 2015, acquiring all Ricciardi's shares and gaining a 49% stake in the company, while Ricciardi left the company to found his own game audio production studio WANT Musik. In 2018, Guarini relocated Ovosonico to Milan. Digital Bros bought the remainder in March 2020. Guarini subsequently left the company and retained the Ovosonico brand under his company Guarini Design S.r.l., while the Ovosonico studio was rebranded Avantgarden with its twenty employees now managed by Digital Bros' Abramo "Rami" Galante.

Games developed

* '' Murasaki Baby'' (2014) * ''

Last Day of June ''Last Day of June'' is an adventure puzzle video game developed by Ovosonico and published by 505 Games. It is based on Steven Wilson's song ''Drive Home''. The game was released for the PlayStation 4 and Windows in August 2017, and ported f ...

'' (2017)

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.ovosonico.com/ Companies based in Milan Italian companies established in 2012 Privately held companies of Italy Video game companies established in 2012 Video game companies of Italy Video game development companies 2020 mergers and acquisitions