Breaking Change closes £1m pre seed led by Development Bank of Wales and Haatch
This article covers Breaking Change, a gaming startup, which has closed a pre-seed funding round of more than £1m to accelerate development of its simulation and AI-assisted authoring platform for complex gameplay systems. The development is intended to support game studios by shortening bespoke engineering time and lowering the risk of building interlocking gameplay systems.
Breaking Change, a gaming startup, has closed a pre-seed funding round of more than £1 million to accelerate development of its simulation and AI-assisted authoring platform for complex gameplay systems. The package includes £735,000 in equity led by the Development Bank of Wales and Haatch, together with an Innovate UK Growth Catalyst grant, and will be used to expand the team, push R&D and begin studio pilots in 2026.
Why it matters
Modern game development increasingly depends on deep, interlocking systems — vehicle handling, weapons, player progression and in-game economies — that can take months of bespoke engineering to get right. Tools that reduce that time and risk can materially lower production costs and speed up iteration, particularly for small and mid-sized studios. Breaking Change’s approach bundles simulation with AI-assisted authoring to let designers build, test and tweak systems more quickly, which could make complex mechanics more accessible across the industry.
Inside the product
Breaking Change is building infrastructure software that models gameplay systems and provides authoring tools on top of those simulations. Rather than hand-coding systems for every project, studios can use the platform to prototype behaviours, run simulations to surface edge cases and use AI assistance to generate or tune system parameters. The company says the setup aims to shorten bespoke engineering effort, reduce bugs introduced during late-stage adjustments and enable safer experimentation during production.
The roadmap announced alongside the funding focuses on hiring engineers and R&D staff, improving simulation fidelity and initiating pilot programmes with game studios throughout 2026 to validate the platform in real development pipelines.
Who are the investors?
The equity portion of the round — described by the company as £735,000 — is led by the Development Bank of Wales’ Technology Venture Investments team and early-stage investor Haatch. The Development Bank of Wales invested £350,000 from the Wales Flexible Investment Fund, while Haatch contributed £285,000. The round also includes participation from Saola Ventures and games industry angel Dr Tomas Rawlings.
Alongside the equity, Breaking Change has received an Innovate UK Growth Catalyst grant to support further product development. The company cites earlier support from Media Cymru, Innovate UK, the UK Games Fund and the Royal Academy of Engineering as foundational to reaching this stage.
Investors are backing a tool-focused playbook that targets production bottlenecks rather than consumer-facing game franchises. For investors, the attraction is a potentially high-leverage product that can be licensed across multiple studios and projects, shortening development cycles and de-risking complex gameplay features.
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Founder perspective
Breaking Change frames the funding as a step toward moving the platform out of R&D and into real-world testing with partner studios. The company expects the new capital to enable hires across simulation engineering and AI, and to fund pilot integrations that will demonstrate how the platform performs inside existing development workflows.
The bigger picture
The deal highlights ongoing activity in the UK games ecosystem for tooling and productivity startups that address core development challenges. Public and quasi-public backers such as the Development Bank of Wales, Innovate UK and the UK Games Fund continue to play a visible role in getting tech-first games companies from prototype to pilot. If Breaking Change’s platform reduces the time and cost of building complex systems, it could become part of a broader shift toward higher-productivity pipelines across UK and European studios.
They've invested in Breaking Change
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| Investors | Investment Focus | Startup Investments | Round Size | Connect |
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