We Were Built for War.

Now We Choose Our Battles.

We are a B2B game development studio.

We are the team you call when systems break and excuses run out.

We are building our own worlds in the margins, while funding them in the fire.

WHAT OTHERS ABANDON

We take the contract.

Broken multiplayer. Failing launches.
Systems already written off.

We enter after the damage is done – when reputation is on the line and time is gone.

HOW WE FIGHT

No slogans. Only outcomes.

We don’t pitch. We don’t posture.
We execute.

Engines, netcode, failure containment.
If it survives us, it survives anything.

WHY WE’RE STILL HERE

Because walking away is how rot wins.

While others retreat to trends and safety,
we keep building.

Our own projects. Our own terms.
Funded in the trenches.

We step in when it gets delicate

When multiplayer collapses into layers no one wants to touch,
when no one else can help and deadlines stop being funny,
maybe you can hire info@trash-panda-games.com

industry veterans

In 2025, a AAA publisher defunded them
for a crime they did not commit.

They didn’t disappear.
They didn’t pivot to crypto or AI.

A crack team with nothing left to prove.
Now ready for hire.

We like engines

We think in systems.
We send love letters in C++.

We speak fluent multiplayer.
State, sync, replication, failure modes.

When things get delicate,
we don’t hand it off. We cut in.

The result isn’t flashy

No fireworks. No buzzwords.

Systems end up running
like ghost machines.

Stable under load.
Quiet under pressure.
Smoother than your excuses.

DISCOVER OUR STORY

Five slides. No varnish.

This is studio Trash Panda.
Built by people who didn’t quit when it got ugly
and didn’t survive by playing nice.

Told by our Founder & CEO.

SAM BALLECK

FOUNDER & CEO

I joined the U.S. Army after 9/11.
I served in Afghanistan. I learned what violence really costs.
I was injured in the line of duty—and I didn’t stop moving.

When the war ended, I didn’t look for comfort. I went back to my childhood fantasy.
I joined an AAA to bring lived experience into an industry that prefers distance, and safety.

I expected friction.
I didn’t expect ideology to replace truth.

THE CULTURE WAR

War never changes.
The industry changed.

Truth became optional. Reality became offensive.
Competence took a back seat to narratives.

I refused to rehearse slogans.
I refused to reduce people to categories.
I refused to lie to keep my seat.

That cost me status.
It cost me allies.
It clarified everything.

THE CREW

Trash Panda was built from the fallout.

Cancel-culture survivors. Engineers. Artists. Veterans. Misfits.
People who were told they were “the problem” for standing their ground.

Call us pirates, call us renegades.
We prefer operators.

We work B2B because we know how systems really fail.

And on stolen hours, we build our own worlds:
unfiltered, unapologetic, and very much alive.

STILL HERE. STILL STANDING.

We are multicultural in the true sense.

Different faces. Different histories. One line we won’t cross.

We are not anti-anyone.
We are pro-West, pro-agency, pro-responsibility.

That stance cost us contracts, comfort, and careers.

We paid it.
We’re still here.
And the fire didn’t go out.

Meet the core team

Sam Balleck

Founder | CEO | Creative Director

Military veteran with operational experience in Afghanistan. Brings real-world tactical insight and leadership under pressure to game development. Has contributed battlefield expertise to AAA productions, including work with Electronic Arts, grounding creative direction in realism, systems thinking, and consequence-driven design. Real conditions. Real decisions.

Jérémie Mercier

CTO / Principal Engineer

Former corporate consultant specialized in systems architecture and cybersecurity. Leads the studio’s technical direction with a hands-on approach, covering gameplay systems, infrastructure, backend, and security. Focused on building reliable systems that scale cleanly and support long-term development without friction.

Alexandra Voss

Technical Artist

Bridges art and engine with a strong focus on shaders, tools, and performance. Turns complex visual goals into production-ready pipelines and keeps artists moving fast without breaking builds.

Chen Li

VFX & Lighting Artist

Specialized in real-time VFX, lighting, and particles. Strong eye for readability and performance, with a pragmatic approach to engine constraints and cross-platform consistency.

Chloe Wilson

Gameplay Programmer

Implements gameplay features, systems, and interactions with a strong emphasis on clarity and responsiveness. Reliable contributor across prototyping, polish, and production phases.

Marek Kowalski

Technical Artist | Slav

Technical artist focused on shaders, rendering workflows, and optimization. Known for solving visual bottlenecks and aligning art direction with engine realities.

Victor Alvarez

QA Analyst | BJJ dude

QA analyst focused on execution, verification, and production support. Strong at identifying edge cases, documenting issues clearly, and keeping feedback actionable for developers.

Luis Fernández

QA Analyst | Victor's best enemy

Hands-on QA analyst covering functional testing, regression, and reproduction of complex bugs. Detail-oriented, methodical, and well-versed in supporting distributed dev teams.

Natacha Goossens

Gameplay Programmer

Gameplay-focused programmer working on core mechanics, player systems, and moment-to-moment feel. Comfortable iterating fast with designers while keeping code clean and extensible.

Ryan Mitchell

Backend Engineer | Bit Anon

Designs and maintains backend systems for games and tools: services, APIs, persistence, and security. Focused on reliability, scalability, and long-term maintainability.

Looking for Nephilim 2083?

A general once led armies.
Then he was cast aside – and kept fighting anyway.

Nephilim existed. It still does.
We were under a $5M contract with a AAA publisher.
The work was moving.
The direction was clear.

Then new management arrived in late 2025.
The tone changed. Courage became “risk.”
The theme became “offensive”.
Funding was cut. Not for quality.
For “cultural alignment“.

The project didn’t die.
It went underground.

War never changes.

So here’s the question:
is there a publisher left who’s willing to defy the narrative?

Trash Panda Games

We don’t advertise.
The people who need us always find us.

the others try
info@trash-panda-games.com