Dark Sandwich

Dark Sandwich is an independent Malaysian animation and digital asset production studio founded in 2019. It specializes in creature, character and gameplay animation for video games and cinematic trailers, supporting external development teams with animation, technical rigging and production-ready 3D assets. Its work spans PC, console and mobile games, alongside cinematics and marketing productions for interactive entertainment.

The studio’s animation capabilities cover hand-keyed creature movement, character locomotion, combat actions, dances and emotes, as well as motion-capture cleanup. It works across stylized, semi-realistic and photorealistic visual styles. Creature work includes bipeds, quadrupeds, monsters and mythical animals, with attention to anatomy and motion mechanics. Its broader asset services encompass character, creature, environment and prop modeling and texturing, together with rigs designed for game production.

Production partnerships

Dark Sandwich works as an extension of client development teams, providing external animation capacity and integrating with established production pipelines. Its collaboration with Wolfpack Games on HavenHold began in August 2023. The studio became the project’s sole external animation partner, contributing creature and character locomotion and combat animation through an ongoing series of production batches.

For Moog Studios, Dark Sandwich supplied specialist modeling, rigging and hand-keyed animation for creatures and characters appearing in Valorant cinematic skinline trailers produced for Riot Games. This work included complex creature builds such as a giant dragon and a giant snake, combining asset creation with animation for cinematic delivery.

From prototypes to external development

The company initially explored hypercasual and casual mobile game development, publishing original prototypes including Swing Getaway, Totter Box and Zaibot. It subsequently shifted its core business toward external co-development, gameplay animation and rigging services for other game productions.

Dark Sandwich operates as a remote-first team based in Malaysia, with its operational base in Kuala Lumpur. Alongside its service business, the studio retains a long-term ambition to pursue independent internal game development.