Case Study: Subcult Joint achieves high-performance 2D visuals and lighting in Cookie Cutter with Unity

How Subcult Joint managed 2,000+ Sprite Sheets and 10,000+ 2D Lights in Cookie Cutter

Subcult Joint used Unity to bring its hand-drawn Metroidvania Cookie Cutter to life across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. The small Brighton-based team faced the challenge of optimizing thousands of high-resolution traditional-animation assets and managing complex 2D lighting while still maintaining crisp visuals and smooth, responsive gameplay.

With Unity’s PSD Importer, Sprite Sheet Editor, Sprite Atlases, URP 2D Lights, and a mid-project upgrade to Unity 2022 LTS, Subcult Joint streamlined asset management, improved memory usage, and boosted lighting quality. Unity’s updated profiling tools helped resolve video memory overflow issues on PS5, while the production-ready 2D Lights system and improved Sprite Atlases enabled the team to polish the game further; Cookie Cutter launched successfully, selling 60,000 copies and generating $1.2 million in its first month.

Subcult Joint

Stefano Guglielmana

Founder