Following Pho Anh Hai, another Vietnamese game is gaining international attention.

Exploring the job of a delivery driver from a horror-comedy perspective.

Night Shippers is an indie co-op horror game developed by Young Buffalo Studio. Instead of choosing unusual themes, the development team decided to put players in the role of night-time delivery workers. Players' task is to work in teams of 1-4 people to complete deliveries, while also facing unexpected situations and strange entities in dark alleyways.

Gamers take on the role of delivery drivers, completing nighttime delivery missions in a setting inspired by the development team's own hometown. (Photo: Provided by the developer)

Sharing their thoughts on the concept, the studio representative stated that the inspiration came from films about delivery jobs such as Upstream (China) and Ghost Delivery (Thailand). The team realized that being a delivery driver is a common profession, evoking much empathy in Vietnam, but it hasn't been explored much in the gaming industry. The choice of a horror-comedy genre was also considered a good fit for the studio's current capabilities and aligned with player preferences.

One of the factors that contributed to Night Shippers receiving positive feedback from the demo was the way the setting was constructed. The game's environment recreates nightlife with yellow lights and details of everyday activities.

According to the development team, the game's maps are inspired by their own hometowns. For example, the "District 13 Market" map is based on the setting of An Dong Market (formerly District 5), while the Hanoi atmosphere is incorporated into the "Dan Phuong" map. Besides the visuals, the sound design is also carefully considered, featuring the sounds of late-night street vendors selling items like steamed buns and noodle soup. The food items available for delivery in the game are also familiar names like pho, banh mi, and bun cha.

Google experts offer advice on sustainable development.

Night Shippers was launched at a time when the Vietnamese gaming industry was receiving significant attention from international experts. At the recent Google Apps Summit 2025 held in Ho Chi Minh City, Aditya Swamy, Managing Director of Google Play for Southeast Asia, India, and Australia, shared his views on the potential of the Vietnamese gaming industry.

Mr. Aditya emphasized that for a Vietnamese game to gain international attention, it needs to focus on original intellectual property (IP) and creative differentiation – core elements that make a product unique and difficult to copy. The originality, engaging gameplay, and novelty of Pho Anh Hai attracted attention not only in Vietnam but also in international markets, leading Google to include the game in its references at the event.

One of his specific pieces of advice is to find ways to keep players engaged for longer periods, rather than just attracting them with initial curiosity. In today's era, the lifetime value (LTV) is more important than simply downloads. Therefore, developers need to design games with depth, a balanced difficulty level, and rich content layers to encourage repeat play and prevent players from quickly becoming bored.

The Night Shippers development team is mostly made up of Gen Z. Photo: Provided by the team.

The expert advice seems to be being applied by Young Buffalo to the project's development. As a young studio founded in 2023 with seven members, mostly from Generation Z, the team faced many challenges when their first prototype received critical feedback for being "very raw and blunt." However, thanks to persistent revisions, the demo released later attracted approximately 30,000 players and 10,000 interested users within 45 days.

Despite receiving positive feedback, the team decided to postpone the official launch to March 2026, three months later than originally planned. This time will be used to add content, increase the number of maps and monsters, and remove unnecessary features.

The studio representative shared their admiration for Pho Anh Hai but also frankly acknowledged that Night Shippers still has a long way to go to achieve similar popularity. Focusing on perfecting the product instead of rushing the launch shows a long-term development mindset, consistent with the opinion of Mr. Nguyen Dinh Khanh, CEO of Wolffun: Games should be thought of as a model capable of generating real revenue, with a clear marketing plan and economic model, rather than just relying on temporary viral effects.

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