Gardens raises over $35 million for a shared world shaped by player encounters

Gardens Interactive has raised more than $35 million in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, taking its total funding above $70 million. VGC reports the studio’s October 7 announcement, and investor Transcend also lists the new round. The new investment and the lifetime total are separate figures.

The studio’s debut is a shared-world fantasy adventure from a team with credits including Journey and What Remains of Edith Finch. It aims to make chance meetings matter, with players leaving consequences that other people discover after they have moved on.

What Gardens means by a strandbox

Cofounder and creative director Chris Bell describes a sandbox in which your actions remain for whoever comes through next. The team calls this a strandbox. The useful distinction is the intended persistence of those actions, rather than the new genre label itself.

The studio’s website emphasizes encounters with strangers in a shifting, unpredictable wilderness. Those are design goals, not results we have verified through hands-on play. The official concept art accompanying this report illustrates the visual direction rather than showing a gameplay demonstration.

The people and influences behind it

Chris Bell is creative director and co-design lead. Stephen Bell is cofounder and CEO. The wider team lists experience on Journey, Edith Finch, Sky: Children of the Light, Guild Wars 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3, among other games.

Chris Bell names ARC Raiders among the influences in VGC’s report. Our coverage of its free-play period and Frozen Trail update provides context for that reference. Gardens has not presented its adventure as an equivalent extraction game.

A waitlist, rather than immediate access

The Gardens Firstlook page accepts playtest waitlist registrations. It says admitted players receive an email link to join the game. Signing up does not guarantee an immediate invitation or amount to purchasing an available release.

The reviewed studio website does not set a commercial release date or list launch platforms. A shared multiplayer world also does not establish console-to-PC crossplay. That needs its own confirmation, as our guide to crossplay and cross-device progress explains.