New World Interactive grew out of a mod rather than a business plan. In 2002, Canadian Army veteran Andrew Spearin began building a total conversion for Valve's Source engine that pitted the United States Marine Corps against rebel insurgents, with a focus on realism drawn from his own military experience. Jeremy Blum and other developers from the Red Orchestra team joined him in 2005, and the mod shipped in 2007 as Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat. Spearin and Blum co-founded New World Interactive in 2010 to turn that foundation into a commercial studio, and production on a standalone sequel began in September 2011. Insurgency reached early access in 2013 and launched in full on Steam on January 22, 2014, keeping the mod's defining rules: a stripped-down HUD, lethal weapons, no regular respawns, and a class and supply-point system that limits what a player can carry into a round. It sold 400,000 copies in its first eight months and roughly 3.76 million by July 2017, and it took both the Editor's Choice and Player's Choice awards in Indie DB's Indie of the Year 2014. The studio's next project started life the same way its first had, as a Steam Workshop mod for Insurgency in 2016 before growing into its own game. Day of Infamy moved the formula to the Western Front of World War II, dropped low-powered optical sights, added purchasable cosmetics and a new fire support and command system, and went from early access in July 2016 to a full Steam release on March 23, 2017.
Insurgency: Sandstorm, released in 2018, was the direct sequel to the original game and the first New World Interactive title built outside Source, using Unreal Engine 4 to refine the fire support system, add drivable vehicles, and introduce a detailed cosmetics system with purchasable outfits and weapon skins. Its Xbox and PlayStation versions were delayed for several years and arrived in 2021. The studio, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, expanded in February 2019 with New World North in Calgary, Alberta, which that July hired former BioWare artist Michael Grills as Art Director and Derek Czerkaski as Head of Production. In March 2020 company President Keith Warner became CEO while Blum stepped into a strategic and creative advisor role, and in August 2020 New World Interactive was acquired by Saber Interactive as part of Embracer Group, reporting 58 employees in 2021. Embracer's wider restructuring brought layoffs in December 2023, with some staff moved into open positions at Saber and work on Sandstorm and an unannounced project continuing. In March 2024 Saber was sold to Beacon Interactive, a new company formed by Saber co-founder Matthew Karch, and New World Interactive went with it. The catalog still holds up for players who want the tactical shooter in its purest form: Insurgency received a client update as recently as December 2025, and its community keeps the game alive on player-hosted dedicated servers. This collection carries Insurgency, the 2014 game that established the studio.
