Nighthawks Wadjet Eye: Publisher, Developer and History

Searches for Nighthawks Wadjet Eye usually want to know who is behind the game and why its release story is so unusual. Short version: Wadjet Eye Games published it, The Curiosity Engine — writer and designer Richard Cobbett — developed it, and between a 2017 Kickstarter and the 2026 launch, the game survived an eight-year build and an Adults Only rating mix-up days before release.

Who Is Wadjet Eye Games?

Wadjet Eye Games is the publisher of Nighthawks (the vampire RPG) and appears on the official store page with founder Dave Gilbert credited as producer. The studio's role on this project was publishing and production support: the game itself is built by The Curiosity Engine. On Wadjet Eye's own site, Nighthawks is sold alongside the studio's other narrative adventures, and the publisher also distributes the game on GOG and Humble — where the Humble purchase bundles a free soundtrack with the Steam key.

What the publisher's involvement amounts to:

• Founder Dave Gilbert is credited as producer on the store page.
• Publishing and production support came from Wadjet Eye; development stayed with The Curiosity Engine.
• Nighthawks sits on Wadjet Eye's own site among the studio's other narrative adventures.
• The publisher distributes the game on GOG and Humble, with a free soundtrack bundled into the Humble purchase.
• The Wadjet Eye Steam account publishes launch news and patch notes, making it the channel to watch for fixes.

The Team Behind the Game

The store page credits the full team: written and designed by Richard Cobbett (Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies), art by Ben Chandler (Old Skies, Unavowed), music by Thomas Regin (Unavowed), and Dave Gilbert (Wadjet Eye Games) as producer. PC Gamer's review adds that Cobbett is a former Rock Paper Shotgun writer known for the Crapshoot column, and RPS notes he contributed there frequently until 2018. The Kickstarter credited 3,934 backers as making the game possible, and the finished product — 800,000-plus words, fully voiced, ten recruitable companions — launched on September 22, 2026 for Windows, macOS and Linux at $19.99.

The store page credits, at a glance:

• Written and designed by Richard Cobbett (Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies).
• Art by Ben Chandler (Old Skies, Unavowed).
• Music by Thomas Regin (Unavowed).
• Produced by Dave Gilbert (Wadjet Eye Games).
• Made possible by 3,934 Kickstarter backers.

Who Does What on the Project

Actor	Role / responsibility
The Curiosity Engine	Developer — the micro-studio of writer and designer Richard Cobbett that built the game.
Richard Cobbett	Lead creator — wrote and designed Nighthawks; previously wrote for Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies (per the store page credits).
Ben Chandler	Art — credited on the store page (Old Skies, Unavowed).
Thomas Regin	Music — credited on the store page (Unavowed).
Dave Gilbert / Wadjet Eye Games	Producer and publisher — credited on the store page; Wadjet Eye handles publishing, production support, distribution on Steam/GOG/Humble, and the Steam channel for launch news and patch notes.
3,934 Kickstarter backers	Backed the game's October 6, 2017 Kickstarter ($128,576) and are credited as making it possible.

The Adults Only Mix-Up

Over the weekend before launch, Valve mistakenly classified the game as "Adults Only," a category Wadjet Eye's Steam news post says is usually reserved for porn games. The game was hidden from Steam search, required credit-card-based age verification in some territories, and was removed from some territories entirely; PC Gamer reported Germany among the affected regions (to confirm). Rock Paper Shotgun covered the appeal on September 15 under the developers' quip that Valve "is under the impression that this game is way sexier than it actually is," and on September 16 a store-page news post announced the game was officially rated "Not Porn" by Valve, thanking Valve for expediting the appeal. Wadjet Eye also noted the saga was a net positive: the story went viral, drew press coverage, and wishlists "essentially doubled overnight." The game then launched on schedule on September 22, 2026 with its content description intact — strong language, adult situations and occasional non-explicit nudity in text-only romance scenes, no graphic sex scenes or sexual violence. Cobbett's own interview account (Adventure Games Podcast, September 18, 2026) fills in the mechanics: a debug build Valve requested, a "list of scenes" read as volume, and a fix that involved no content change whatsoever — see the section below.

Valve, the developers quipped in the appeal Rock Paper Shotgun covered, "is under the impression that this game is way sexier than it actually is" (RPS, September 15, 2026).

The saga, date by date:

Date	Event
October 6, 2017	Kickstarter funded: $128,576 from 3,934 backers.
~September 12-13, 2026	Valve mistakenly classifies the game Adults Only over the launch weekend (to confirm exact date).
September 15, 2026	RPS covers the appeal under the developers' "way sexier than it actually is" quip.
September 16, 2026	Steam news post announces the game is officially rated "Not Porn"; Wadjet Eye says wishlists "essentially doubled overnight."
September 22, 2026	Nighthawks launches on schedule for Windows, macOS and Linux at $19.99.
September 23, 2026	Patch 1.1 ships via the Wadjet Eye Steam account.

Post-Launch Support

Wadjet Eye's role continued after release: the studio's Steam account published the launch-day "Grand Opening" post and Patch 1.1 on September 23, 2026, which fixed a Sucker Bet softlock, a Madame Lux intro bug and sewer navigation friction, with a larger patch announced. That makes the publisher channel the most reliable place to track fixes and announcements going forward.

Cobbett in His Own Words: the Pre-Launch Interview

Days before launch, Richard Cobbett sat for a long interview with the Adventure Games Podcast ("How Nighthawks is changing the Vampire RPG with Richard Cobbett," uploaded September 18, 2026), recorded right after the Adults Only saga — he jokes on tape that his "soul has been forcibly yanked" by the busy few days, and confirms the team was "pretty confident about launching on time." The interview is now the fullest first-person account of both the rating incident and the design philosophy, and it adds details no written piece carried:

• How the mix-up happened: Steam's content survey led Valve to request a debug build; Cobbett believes somebody there saw "a list of scenes" in the game and assumed the whole game was made of them, when they were individual scenes scattered across 25-50 hours. His analogy: judging a Dragon Age game only by a YouTube compilation of its romance scenes would make it look far filthier than it is.
• It was not censorship and nothing was cut: "Nothing's been changed… Valve didn't have a problem with any of the content. It was only a misunderstanding about how much of it there was" — and he explicitly rejects the theory that gay or trans characters triggered it.
• The regional mechanics, from the developer's side: Germany was blocked outright and the UK was among the countries where buying required credit-card age verification (per the interview).
• The tone defense: "I'm British, so when I write a sex scene, it is probably going to end up with somebody coming in at the end to deflate it a bit" — date sequences end with "a small slice of cheesecake before we tactfully fade out," and the Steam page's own "murder, sex, betrayal, even friendship" line drew the eye that started the mess.
• Design intent, warm not cold: most vampire games are "very cold" personal horror where the nightclub is a royal court; Nighthawks' first Act is deliberately traditional coldness, then pivots to found family — an enclave where vampires play Cluedo and run prank wars, "the first time they've been able to be themselves for potentially hundreds of years." The goal: players leave sad to say goodbye, knowing their presence made these characters' eternities better.
• Roots: a childhood on Sierra and LucasArts adventures (his first graphical adventure was Leisure Suit Larry at about age seven, he says), Broken Sword and Gabriel Knight, with Quest for Glory 2's walk-between-cities world-building as a touchstone — and a comedy lineage of Red Dwarf, The Hitchhiker's Guide and Blackadder.

The interview's key points, in one table:

Topic	Cobbett's account	Why it matters
What triggered the AO rating	Valve saw a list of scenes from a debug build and read volume as intensity.	Explains the September 16 reversal without any content change.
Was anything censored?	"Nothing's been changed" — including LGBTQ+ content.	Confirms the launch build is the intended build.
Regions affected	Germany blocked; UK credit-card age verification.	Sharpens the earlier "some territories" reporting.
Sex content	Mostly comedic, "tactfully fade out," equal-opportunity fan service.	Matches PC Gamer and RPS read-throughs.
Vampire-game design	Deliberately warm found-family angle vs. the genre's cold royal-court default.	The thesis statement for the whole game.