I’m not sure why there hasn’t been a business simulator where you could live up the glamorous, extremely vicious, exploitative, and horrible life of a movie studio owner in Old Hollywood. At least until now, that is, as Weappy Studio has announced Hollywood Animal for release in February 2025 as an early access game where your job is to navigate the dark streets against other major film studios in order to build a movie empire that’ll last.
It’s an obvious target for a management game, when you think about it! A terrible little industry that chewed up idealistic young people and spat out drug-addled adults who’d burned their candle at both ends. Where your connections to organized crime (and worse) let you take drastic measures when things didn’t go your way.
Hollywood Animal promises to have all that, and indeed probably let you make some movies along the way by choosing talent like stars, cinematographers, producers, directors—all those important jobs.
“Make your dreams come true — or crush someone else’s. Take the helm of a major Hollywood studio at the dawn of sound cinema, and guide it through decades of creative achievements and glamor, debauchery and dark deeds, tough choices and unpleasant compromises,” says the developer.
I’m particularly interested in the time-based aspects of Hollywood Animal. Starting in the 1930s means that this game’s going to hit some very dark periods of history and might even stretch into the war years making lighthearted entertainment and propaganda films for the troops overseas. The demo shows that this isn’t out of the question—virulent racists and sexists show up among the studio talent pool and have their own drawbacks just like addicts and such do.
Hollywood Animal is published by Weappy Studio, creators of This is the Police and Rebel Cops, and developed by sub-group Weappy Wholesome.
You can find Hollywood Animal on Steam, where it’ll release on February 27, 2025.