Klei Entertainment is a Canadian independent video game developer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, founded in 2005 by Jamie Cheng. The studio has built one of the most distinctive catalogs in indie gaming across survival, stealth, strategy, and roguelike genres, always with a recognizable hand-drawn visual style that makes their games identifiable at a glance. Tencent acquired a majority stake in Klei in January 2021, though the studio has continued to operate with full creative independence under that ownership.
Before Don’t Starve made Klei a household name in survival gaming, Mark of the Ninja in 2012 established the studio as one of the best developers working in the stealth genre. The 2D side-scrolling stealth game used light and shadow as core mechanics, with the environment clearly communicating what enemies could see and hear. It received strong critical reviews and remains one of the most mechanically satisfying stealth games made, influencing how 2D stealth has been designed since. A remastered version, Mark of the Ninja: Remastered, released in 2018.
Don’t Starve released in April 2013 and became Klei’s commercial breakout. A survival game set in a hand-drawn wilderness inspired by Tim Burton’s visual aesthetic, it combined resource gathering, base building, and permadeath in a format that rewarded learning through failure. Don’t Starve Together, the standalone multiplayer expansion, released in 2016 and has been Klei’s longest-running live service, receiving regular free content updates for nearly a decade. The combined player base across both titles has made Don’t Starve the studio’s most commercially successful franchise.
Oxygen Not Included released into Steam Early Access in 2017 and reached full release in 2019. A space colony survival simulation, it tasks players with managing a group of duplicants living inside an asteroid, balancing oxygen production, food, heat, power, and psychological wellbeing across an increasingly complex base. It received very positive reviews for its depth and the emergent problem-solving it generates. It remains actively updated and has a dedicated community of players who share their colony designs and solutions.
Invisible Inc, released in 2015, was Klei’s entry into turn-based tactics, a cyberpunk espionage game about infiltrating corporations with a small team of agents under time pressure. It received strong critical reception and demonstrated the studio’s range beyond survival and action. Griftlands, released in full in 2021 after an early access period, was a deck-building RPG with branching narrative where every interaction, combat and negotiation alike, used cards. It received positive reviews for its writing and the way it integrated story into its mechanics.
Rotwood entered Steam Early Access in April 2024 as Klei’s most recent major project, a co-op dungeon crawler with roguelike progression set in a forest overrun by a magical corruption called the Rot. Up to four players fight through procedurally generated dungeons with a combat system built around timing and combo chaining. It received strong early access reception and Klei has continued updating it toward a full release.