Until now, your Core Studio (the main game development business where you hire staff, greenlight projects, ship games, and run console hardware) was always under your direct control. Side ventures like your football club, movie studio, or racing team could already be handed to an Empire CEO. Core Studio could not.That changes with Core Studio CEO mode. You can now appoint a CEO, set a strategic posture and weekly budget, switch to Hands-off, and let them run day-to-day studio operations while you focus on the wider empire.
Core Studio CEO mode is the same Empire delegation system used by your other ventures, applied to your main studio. When active:
An appointed CEO runs weekly studio operations on autopilot.
You set the strategy (posture, budget, risk, KPI targets, focus tags).
The CEO executes within those limits.
Studio screens stay open for reporting and watching, but most operational buttons are locked.
Pop-ups for contracts, poaches, raises, project decisions, expos, and similar events are handled by the CEO instead of interrupting you.
Think of it as promoting yourself from studio manager to chairman: you steer direction, the CEO runs the floor.
Open the top navigation and go to Empire → CEOs.
Find Core studio & hardware in the venture list.
Click Manage on that row.
In the CEO panel:
Appoint a CEO from the candidate list (or assign internal staff if available).
Set Engagement to Hands-off (CEO).
Choose a Posture (see below).
Set a Weekly budget the CEO can spend from.
Adjust Risk appetite and Focus tags if you want to steer genre or strategy bias.
Optionally tune KPI targets (releases per year, market share, team morale, 52-week profit).
Advance weeks as normal. The CEO acts each week and their latest action appears in the CEO activity log on the Empire → CEOs panel.
To take direct control again: Empire → CEOs → Core studio & hardware → Manage → Hands-on.You can also jump straight to the studio dashboard from the CEOs table using the Open link on that row.
These run in the background even when the CEO spends their one strategic action elsewhere:
Auto-assigns staff to active projects (PM-led assignment is enabled automatically).
Configures team auto-hire budgets based on your posture and weekly budget.
Hires for capacity, not just when a role is completely empty. The CEO scales headcount with your active project slate, filling programmer, designer, artist, and marketer roles. They can hire up to four people in a single hiring pass when the studio is understaffed.
Hires community managers when you have an active MOBA, MMORPG, or live-service project and none on staff.
Proactively renews contracts for senior staff (level 3+) whose deals are expiring within eight weeks, before rivals can poach them.
When Hands-off is active, the CEO resolves these without showing you a modal:
Situation
What the CEO does
Contract renewals
Renews key staff; may make star performers permanent under grow/war postures
Rival poach attempts
Matches offers for critical staff on active projects; declines others
Key person leave requests
Approves recovery leave
Raise requests
Offers a fair raise and resolves the request
Project milestone decisions
Picks a balanced/safe option
Internal studio events
Resolves with a conservative choice
Live-service community events
Resolves community issues for MMO/MOBA
Publisher greenlights
Approves pending greenlights
Annual expo prompts
Attends with your strongest showcase project, or skips if budget/posture does not allow
Contract expiry tips are also suppressed while the CEO is active, since they handle renewals themselves.
Each week the CEO may take one strategic action. Project-related actions include:
Greenlighting new games based on your posture, focus tags, and pipeline size limit.
Greenlighting sequels to successful released titles (higher sequel bias under harvest/war).
Greenlighting MOBAs and MMORPGs when live-service bias and unlock conditions are met (cash and calendar year gates still apply).
Linking sequels to story universes when a franchise bible already exists.
Releasing finished games when they are ready to ship.
Approving publisher greenlights when a publishing deal is pending.
The CEO will not start a new project unless enough staff exist to support the expanded slate (roughly four core roles per active project).
Marketing campaigns: funds campaigns for in-development games that are below the marketing target for your posture.
Console R&D and hardware: invests in R&D, sets console specs, launches new player consoles, and starts next-gen research when posture allows (hold under harvest/divest, support under maintain, expand under grow/war).
Office expansion: upgrades office capacity under grow and war postures when staff are near capacity.
Under supportive postures, the CEO also manages:
Story universes: creates franchise bibles for hit released games (score 70+).
Characters: creates franchise characters and attaches them to flagship in-development projects.
Expo planning: books booth space, selects showcase projects, and sets marketing level for the next industry expo (modest or flagship depending on posture and budget).
Special editions: approves collector's editions for well-reviewed released games (score 75+).
Merchandise: launches apparel and product lines tied to successful releases.
MOBA / MMORPG live ops: funds team budgets, assigns community managers, and enables automated community schedules (dev blogs, patch notes, sneak peeks).
Your posture shapes how aggressive the CEO is across hiring, slate size, marketing, hardware, IP, expos, and merch.
Posture
Best for
CEO tendency
War
Market domination
Large projects, big pipeline (up to 4 active), heavy hiring and marketing, flagship expos, aggressive merch, console expansion, live-service push
Grow
Steady expansion
Medium scope, 3-project pipeline, strong hiring, flagship expos, IP development
Maintain
Balanced operation
Moderate pipeline (2 projects), conservative hiring, modest expos
Harvest
Cash extraction
Small projects, sequel-heavy, minimal hiring, modest marketing, limited new IP
Divest
Winding down
Minimal pipeline, no hiring, skips expos and merch, lets non-critical contracts expire
Posture defaults also pre-fill your KPI targets on the CEO panel. You can override those targets manually.
Releases / year
Market share
Team morale
Profit (52 weeks)
These feed the investor CEO rating and directive score shown on Empire → CEOs, same as your other ventures.
Browse all studio screens for reporting: Dashboard, Staff, Teams, Projects, Assignments, Marketing, Hardware, Console R&D, Expo, Characters, Story Universes, Merchandise, Special Editions, MOBA Builder, MMORPG Builder.
Each screen shows a blue CEO notice banner explaining that operations are delegated and naming your CEO.
Watch results: releases, financials, news, analytics, and empire command dashboards all update normally.
Manage the rest of your empire: other ventures, acquisitions, political campaigns, banking, and so on are unaffected.
If you try to hire, fire, assign, greenlight, plan an expo, create merch, or take other operational actions, you will see a toast:
Core Studio CEO mode: operations are delegated. Switch to Hands-on under Empire → CEOs to make changes.
Set a realistic weekly budget. Hiring, marketing, console R&D, and live-service funding all draw from it. Too low and the CEO will stall; too high and you may burn cash faster than revenue supports.
Match posture to your cash position. War and grow need runway. Harvest works when you want sequels and merch from existing hits without big new bets.
Check Empire → CEOs each week. Review the CEO's last action, directive score, and investor rating. Replace underperformers or switch to Hands-on for a crisis week.
Use focus tags on the CEO panel to steer slate pitches toward genres or platforms you want.
Keep applicants flowing. The CEO can only hire from your applicant pool. If recruiting dries up, capacity hiring will stop even with budget available.
Unlock live-service content normally. MOBA and MMORPG greenlights still require the usual in-game unlock year and cash thresholds. The CEO will pursue them once eligible under the right posture.
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