In 2012, the original founders of People Can Fly and the creative leads behind Painkiller and Bulletstorm have started a new independent studio. They named it The Astronauts to emphasize the idea of visiting unknown worlds and taking risky but exciting new directions— which explains why their first game, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, was a weird fiction horror, and the second, Witchfire, is a dark fantasy first-person shooter.