Hollywood's love affair with video games reaches Cyprus

Nekki, the Cyprus-based developer of the upcoming video game SPINE, has teamed up with Story Kitchen - of Sonic The Hedgehog movie fame - to develop a potential adaptation of the game.

Story Kitchen is known for the Sonic The Hedgehog movie, Tomb Raider on Netflix, and an upcoming live-action adaptation of Sifu, on which they're working with John Wick's creator, Derek Kolstad.

SPINE will be released on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox towards the end of next year. The official description of the game states it is “a female-led cyberpunk Gun Fu story set in a dystopian world". The main character, Redline, is an adventurous street artist battling against an autocratic AI regime - and its goons - to rescue her captive brother.

Dmitry Pimenov, Game Director of SPINE, tells CBN how the collaboration came about while he also reveals more about the video game’s release date.

How did this collaboration come about?

After the first trailer, we started communicating with various partners. The trailer immediately stated a high level of cinematic and Story Kitchen was interested in SPINE. Here's a link to that very video, which already has over 1 million views:

Are there any specific ideas about what the film adaptation will be about?

We're developing SPINE as a cross-media franchise, including downloadable content after release, comic books, a board game, and merchandise. For those interested in the game's universe, we have already published a webtoon comic "SPINE: Bullet Dancers". And we'd like to tell one of Redline's stories in movie/TV format, as she's a key character in the SPINE universe for us. Plus we think the world lacks Gun Fu action movies about female protagonists!

Do we have a date yet for when SPINE will be released on PC, PlayStation5 and Xbox?

Late 2025 is an estimation, we will announce a more specific date closer to the release.

Nekki, which is based in Cyprus, is known for games like the “Shadow Fight” fighting game series as well as the parkour runner “Vector,” with over 1 billion registered users globally between their various titles. The company also created the 3D animation programme Cascadeur.

Story Kitchen was founded in Los Angeles in 2022 by Dmitri Johnson, a producer of the “Sonic the Hedgehog” films and the founder of dj2 Entertainment, and Mike Goldberg, who was formerly a partner and agent at APA. Dan Jevons serves as head of development with Timothy I. Stevenson as head of production. Story Kitchen is repped by WME, Pryor Cashman, and TriplePoint PR.