Liquid Swords, the studio established by Avalanche Studios founder and former CEO Christofer Sundberg in 2020, has received an undisclosed investment from NetEase Games.

The Stockholm-based studio said the cash will allow it to realize its vision of "simplifying the development process to create exceptional, narrative-driven experiences."

Notably, Liquid Swords said it will continue to operate independently moving forward. The company hopes the investment will allow it to expand to a 100-strong development team in 2023 and move into a newly refurbished office.

"NetEase Games has been exceptionally supportive from the very get-go, believing in our high ambitions and quality-focused approach to game development," said Sundburg, commenting on the investment in a press release. "We are very pleased to have them as our partners on this adventure and with their support, we can begin to realise the vision for our studio."

Liquid Swords is currently working on its debut project, a single-player open-world action-RPG that's being developed exclusively in Unreal Engine 5.

The Swedish company says the title will be a "hard-boiled take on the open-world crime genre that focuses on deeply human, broken, and tragically-beautiful stories of our city's dark underbelly."

For NetEase, the investment is the latest in a recent flurry of spending that has seen it establish new studios such as Jar of Sparks and GPTRACK50 and invest heavily in companies including Something Wicked and Something Random.

Earlier this year, the Chinese company also made waves after acquiring Detroit: Become Human and Star Wars Eclipse developer Quantic Dream.