Mad Head Games (Serbia's AAA Leap)
Mad Head Games, founded in 2011 in Belgrade and Novi Sad by Nenad Tomic and colleagues, is one of the most prominent game development studios in the Republic of Serbia. Dominating the casual puzzle and hidden-object genres with over 30 titles for Big Fish Games, the studio pivoted into midcore and AAA development with Slavic action-RPG *Pagan Online* (co-published with Wargaming) and high-concept sci-fi third-person shooter *Scars Above* (2023), published under Prime Matter.
Origins and Dominance in Casual Narrative Games
Formed by graduates from the University of Novi Sad, Mad Head Games rose to international prominence via casual adventure titles. As a flagship partner for Big Fish Games, series like *Rite of Passage* and *Cadenza* sold millions of units globally, allowing the studio to scale past 140 engineers and artists.
Pagan Online and Slavic Lore
Seeking to prove their technical prowess on hardcore PC genres, Mad Head partnered with Wargaming to build *Pagan Online* (2019), a fast-paced hack-and-slash action-RPG derived from pre-Christian Slavic mythology. The project elevated the studio's pipeline into complex 3D character animation and high-concurrency server hosting.
Scars Above and Global Console Expansion
Acquired by Saber Interactive within the Embracer Group ecosystem, Mad Head designed *Scars Above* (2023), an atmospheric sci-fi shooter blending *Returnal* exploration with tactical elemental combat. It marked the first Serbian-developed game to receive a worldwide physical disc launch across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.