It’s been quite a week for our little indie-loving hearts as we received announcements on the founding of four high-potential indie game studios helmed by industry veterans. These four will definitely be ones to watch moving forward:
Fuse Games: This new Guildford-based team is currently 17 people strong and helmed by former Electronic Arts (EA) and Criterion veterans including studio general manager Matt Webster. Many of the team members left EA in December 2022 on their way to joining this newly-founded studio. While arcade and open world racing games like Need For Speed are where the team draws its strongest background experience from, they are not ready to announce what type of genre they plan to tackle first under the Fuse Games moniker.
Gas Giant Games: Diablo veterans and Gas Giant Games founders Jay Wilson and Julian Love will serve as the studio’s design director and creative director, respectively. Unlike Fuse, Gas Giant is leaving little to speculation, already announcing that their first game will be an action RPG based on an entirely new IP with previews set to be shown off later this month at the upcoming Game Developers’ Conference (GDC). While the studio founders come from the studio(s) behind Diablo, the full team of Gas Giant brings with it experience from Overwatch, Gears of War, Cyberpunk 2077, Kingdom Hearts, and more.
Magic Soup Games: Among the many shakeups at Blizzard over the last year, the company saw J. Allen Brack, Jen Oneal, and John Donham step away from their roles and leave the company. Those three along with other industry vets have now announced the founding of their new studio, Magic Soup Games. The studio was founded with the hope of “fostering creativity…and a diversity of backgrounds” and the team brings with it experience from working on franchises like World of Warcraft, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, EverQuest, Diablo, and Skylanders. Their first project is yet to be announced.
Soft Rains: Last but not least, Soft Rains is a new Toronto-based studio helmed by industry veterans who worked on popular franchises that included The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Watch Dogs, and more. While the team is not ready to share much yet, it sounds like they are deep at work on an original, first-person, narrative-driven sci-fi IP built in Unreal Engine 5.
Images from: The respective studios listed above
