OneWayEleven's CEO Miguel Campos on the Portuguese studio's first projects, Hanno: A Magical Tale and The Kause
Many companies evolve over time, but very few change quite as much as One Way Eleven has over the past decade. When the games studio was founded around 18 years ago, it wasn't a games studio at all. Instead, One Way Eleven consisted of two companies, Fapptory and Wow Systems, which specialised in software development, mobile applications, and interactive solutions for world expos.
Over the past two decades, the two companies built up quite a reputation, delivering over 100 digital projects for world-renowned clients – including McDonald's, Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid – across various industries. But that all started to change direction in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The games industry was one of the few entertainment areas to accelerate during that challenging period, with hardware sales alone rising by 61% to a staggering £2.26bn.
By late 2021, the European Commission had launched funding to accelerate economic recovery after the pandemic. CEO Miguel Campos and his brother Pedro Campos, now the studio's Creative Director, had been interested in game development since they were teens, and all the cards had fallen into place for them to follow their passion.
By 2023, the pair had established themselves as leaders of Portugal's video game development cluster through their games division, One Way Eleven, as part of the eGames Lab consortium.
"We've taken a massive risk as our company was very stable and almost on autopilot, but we believe we've got to take this chance for the future of the Portuguese games industry," says Miguel Campos. "Poland is seen as one of the key players in the global games industry, and that was all because of CD Projekt Red and The Witcher. All it takes is one title to be a major success. If we can achieve that, it'll be a breakthrough for the entire country."
Hanno: A Story Half a Century in the Making
What One Way Eleven hopes will become that major success story is Hanno: A Magical Tale, the studio's first major project, expected to launch sometime in 2026. Hanno: A Magical Tale is an action-adventure game for PC and consoles, set in the fictional world of Ashar, where players control an orphaned teenager called Vimal who stumbles upon an unusual, baby elephant called Hanno, gifted with magical abilities.
While players take control of Vimal, it's Hanno who is arguably the star of the show.
The pair soon realise they'll have to work together to battle the Asuras – malevolent creatures that have begun corrupting Ashtar. It's an enticing setup that is rich in Portuguese culture. The game's titular Hanno is based on a real albino elephant gifted by the Portuguese king to the Pope in 1514 and The Elephant's Journey, a novel by late Portuguese Literature Nobel prize winner José Saramago also based in the story of an elephant sent to Vienna (Austria) by the Portuguese King.
"We thought that drawing from Portuguese cultural and historical roots would help the game stand out, especially since we were aiming to create an action-adventure title," says Campos. "It just felt like the right fit. Using a story with historical depth also adds marketing potential – it's something influencers can talk about. Yes, there really was an elephant named Hanno, and there's this whole story behind it."
That real story is also rich in gameplay opportunities. As players build up their bond with Hanno and progress through the roughly 10-hour single-player campaign, they will unlock an ever-growing list of abilities that can be utilised in combat and puzzle-solving scenarios.
Hanno: A Magical Tale boasts some impressive visuals powered by Unreal Engine 5.
For example, elephants are known to charge in real life, and Vimal can learn to unleash a telekinetic "charge" of his own – useful for attacking the Asuras and moving large objects to navigate the environment. Another late-game ability sees Vimal take Hanno off his back – where he usually likes to hang out – and onto the ground. Players can then take first-hand control of Hanno and use him to access hard-to-reach places.
"There's this dichotomy: Hanno is a baby, and yet he's powerful. Vimal is just a boy, but he's the one protecting Hanno," explains Campos. "The larger message we want to spread is that maybe animals are more humans than us, and humans are the true animals. Players will be faced with some moral dilemmas surrounding that as they progress through the game, such as deciding how to deal with certain foes. Their choices will impact the overall story and ending, increasing the game's replayability."
The Kause: A Unique Narrative Experience Every Playthrough
Replayability is also a key aspect behind One Way Eleven's other key title, The Kause, which is in the early stages of development for PC and console. Much like Hanno: A Magical Tale, The Kause is inspired by the real world – except this time, it's more of a reflection of today's political climate. Players are thrown into what Campos describes as a psychedelic, oppressive world where they must lead a revolution against a dictator.
The replayability aspects stem from the custom-built narrative system One Way Eleven designed for The Kause within Unreal Engine 5. The system is essentially built on two AI models – one that helps the developers create a really large tree of dialogue options and another that aligns these with character animations and lip-sync to allow for a wildly different narrative experience every time the game is played.
All of this comes into effect in The Kause's core gameplay, which is heavily story-driven and shares many similarities with Team Bondi and Rockstar's L.A. Noire. Here, players are sent out on missions where they solve puzzles and also look to recruit other in-game characters to their cause. But it's unclear where loyalties lie, and players must carefully interrogate those they meet to determine if they're truly on their side by analysing their behaviour, which is rendered in extreme detail using Unreal's Metahuman technology.
"Imagine a system similar to the scripted flows used in call centres. If a customer says X, the agent chooses between response A or B; if they choose B, the conversation moves to C or D, and so on," says Campos. "We're taking that basic principle and applying it on a much broader scale. Here, each dialogue option is connected not just to text but to a specific scene, character animation, lip-sync, and voice acting. And with each decision the player makes, it just keeps going and going."
Overcoming Portugal's Gaming Sector's Biggest Challenge
Campos hopes that through these titles, One Way Eleven can overcome one of the biggest challenges facing Portugal's game development scene: attracting senior talent. While the region is rich with young professionals, with around 7,100 students in areas related to gaming or multimedia as of 2021, the relative infancy of Portugal's gaming sector means that the most experienced professionals are largely based in more established areas like the US.
"The idea from the start was to create a strong local cluster, retain talent, and help grow the game development ecosystem in Portugal," Campos says. "That said, if we want to reach a truly high level of quality and make Portugal a competitive player on the global stage, we also need to bring in the best talent from elsewhere. Without that, it simply won't work."