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Xbox's The Initiative continues its hiring spree with Naughty Dog, Bungie, Crystal Dynamics, Respawn... alumni

FarSight XR-20

FarSight XR-20

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Jan 4, 2018
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Xbox's Newest Studio Continues Its Hiring Spree With Naughty Dog, Crystal Dynamics Alumni
The Initiative has some of the industry's top talent on board for its secretive first game.
www.gamespot.com

Xbox's Newest Studio Continues Its Hiring Spree With Naughty Dog, Crystal Dynamics Alumni

The Initiative has some of the industry's top talent on board for its secretive first game.
www.gamespot.com www.gamespot.com

The announcement included 16 new names working across various departments, including developers from Respawn Entertainment, Crystal Dynamics, Naughty Dog, Bungie, as well as talent making the switch from other areas of the entertainment industry.
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The new hires have an impressive list of shipped games between them, and include Crystal Dynamics' Remi Lacoste, game director on Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Marvel's Avengers and lead on many of its earlier games, as well as Christine Thompson, a lead writer on Destiny 2 and Star Trek Online.
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They join an impressive list of previously hired talent including Red Dead Redemption writer and designer Christian Cantamessa and God of War producer Brian Westergaard.
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List from JeuxVideo's article :

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DGenerator

DGenerator

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Oct 26, 2017
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Is it unusual for new, big studios to hire individuals who, by the nature of the job-volatile games industry, have hired on professionals who have worked at a bunch of different AAA studios?
 
Jeffram

Jeffram

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Oct 29, 2017
3,924
They didn't pick the location of this studio by accident. Will continue to be a lot of cross pollination between most of the studios listed.
 
Montresor

Montresor

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Oct 27, 2017
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touchfuzzy said:
I'm not sure "Director of Shadow of the Tomb Raider' is a good flex...
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I thought that game was amazing. The biggest compliment in my opinion is the game literally had sliders for puzzle difficulty and combat difficulty. I think that's amazing, as someone that's a huge fan of puzzle games. I loved that the game dialed down combat encounters significantly. And I really really enjoyed the exploration and tombs. It wasn't something like Tomb Raider Anniversary in terms of puzzle complexity, but it did a really good job of taking the Rise of the Tomb Raider formula, and replacing combat w/ more puzzles and exploration.
 
CrispyGamer

CrispyGamer

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Jan 4, 2020
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I don't think it matters until we see a proof of concept or something, is there a marquis name I'm missing on that list?
 
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FarSight XR-20

FarSight XR-20

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reKon said:
Who's leading/who are the leaders for this studio?
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Darrell Gallagher. He was Tomb Raider reboot boss.

If I'm correct, he left Crystal Dynamics in 2015 then moved to the studio's parent company (Square Enix) where he spent three years as head of product development and studios. In January 2016, he became SVP, head of development at Activision. Then joined Microsoft to form The Initiative in 2018.
 
Cornbread78

Cornbread78

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Oct 25, 2017
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Sounds like they are trying to bring in experienced talent from around the industry. That's one way to take the best bits on info & experience of past games yo help create new ones
 
Spirited

Spirited

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New studios really take a lot of time to get up and running, I do wonder how far we are from their first release.
 

Deleted member 41520

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Mar 29, 2018
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IronicSonic said:
Half joking here but I wonder if the gameplay designer of Doom Eternal will get along with the gameplay programmer of Naughty Dog and Rockstar.
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If you seriously work a career in programming and/or design you know that years down the line you'll probably work on something completely different and that your skillset and knowledge needs to be adaptible to some extent. At the end of the day you didn't decide to make this game (if it's in AAA) you're just there to help create excellent content and systems that fit the vision.
 
Komo

Komo

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I'm eagerly awaiting to see what they've got in store for us.
 
Ukumio

Ukumio

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Oct 26, 2017
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I feel like the Initiative's game is either going to be the best thing ever or the worst thing ever. There is no middle ground here.
 
Temascos

Temascos

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Oct 27, 2017
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Here's hoping The Initiative does well in the coming years, it's a daunting task to build a AAA games studio from the ground up, even with Microsoft's backing, nevermind having a project in the works too.

Hopefully in the next 2 years we'll be able to hear from them, the studio was formed in 2018 if I recall, and by 2022 they should be ready to show what they're working on. I don't see them making any announcements in 2021 but will be happy to be proved wrong.
 

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DGenerator said:
Is it unusual for new, big studios to hire individuals who, by the nature of the job-volatile games industry, have hired on professionals who have worked at a bunch of different AAA studios?
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No, but their CVs are good so it's still promising.

Looking forward to what they come up with, though I don't expect to see it til 2023 realistically.
 

reKon

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Oct 25, 2017
13,704
FarSight XR-20 said:
Darrell Gallagher. He was Tomb Raider reboot boss.
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Thanks for the information.

Hopefully they'll be able to cook to together something good.

From my understanding, a lot of successful first party studios seemed to have a fairly consistent team of long time employees who have worked together consistently and allowed opportunities for people in less senior positions work their ways up to over leading roles. I'm assuming that there's always some kind of coaching/learning and involvement from everyone in this process, which is why people are able to just come in and take the lead. This seems to result in some consistency unless their a mass departure of talent (i.e. Rare).

I don't have any knowledge of this (this question is to anyone), but has there been any successful new studio that from day 1, has hired a ton of different individuals with 5+ years experience to come together and launch a strong first game?
 
WhovianGamer

WhovianGamer

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Oct 28, 2017
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808s & Villainy said:
Honestly, I'm not going to be impressed until I see an impressive game
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Pretty much. I'm hoping for something better in scope than Perfect Dark.
I also find it odd that we keep getting articles about this studios and its hires. These things happen all the time, especially at the AAA level. It would be more surprising if they didn't hire these people.
 
touchfuzzy

touchfuzzy

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Jul 27, 2019
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Black_Stride said:
Ohh why is that?
It was a good game, sold well like 4 million copies, and would have taken a ton of work to direct a project that large.
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Alternatively you could say it was an average (at best) game, sold half what both it's direct predecessors did, and the guy wasn't hired back on to direct any future projects for them.

But my bad, based on responses I guess every AAA game director ever is amazing or something.
 
Rosebud

Rosebud

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reKon said:
I don't have any knowledge of this (this question is to anyone), but has their been any successful new studio that from day 1, has hired a ton of different individuals with 5+ years experience to come together and launch a strong first game?
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KojiPro (although many Sony studios helped)
 
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FarSight XR-20

FarSight XR-20

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Jan 4, 2018
8,617
guilhermessg said:
so... they're working on a new IP or what
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We don't know. Though there is that tweet from Phil Spencer but it's hard to tell if he meant existing gameplay mechanics or an existing IP.




There are Perfect Dark rumors that started in January 2018 (before The Initiative was created) but we don't know who could be developping it (could be The Initiative, The Coalition, both, another studio or could be nothing).
 
defaltoption

defaltoption

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Oct 27, 2017
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Can't wait to see what this team is working on that should take all the time needed and keep trying to get as much talent under the belt as possible especially since it seems like they might be working on two games there.
 
Uzupedro

Uzupedro

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DGenerator said:
Is it unusual for new, big studios to hire individuals who, by the nature of the job-volatile games industry, have hired on professionals who have worked at a bunch of different AAA studios?
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I don't think so, that's why I don't care much about job listings and hirings, but it's interesting and sometimes can give an insight of what will be done in the game.
 
Black_Stride

Black_Stride

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Oct 28, 2017
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touchfuzzy said:
Alternatively you could say it was an average (at best) game, sold half what both it's direct predecessors did, and the guy wasn't hired back on to direct any future projects for them.

But my bad, based on responses I guess every AAA game director ever is amazing or something.
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Its scored like 80....in what universe is 80 and average game?

You are clearly out of touch my friend.
 
Theorry

Theorry

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RestEerie said:
From the writer of 'that wizard came from the moon'?
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Destiny 2: Campaign Writer/Lead Writer
Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris: Narrative Lead/Lead Writer
Destiny 2: Warmind: Partner Narrative Lead
Destiny 2: Forsaken Annual Pass: Narrative Lead/Lead Writer

Writer for main campaign and cinematics for Destiny: Rise of Iron. Responsible for narrative of Live Events (Festival of the Lost, SRL, Crimson Days, Challenge of the Elders, etc.)
 
JoeNut

JoeNut

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Intriguing! I hope that they can make some real system sellers and with an IP that isn't just a GaaS
 
F4r0_Atak

F4r0_Atak

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It looks like they are ramping up production. Also, as I've said it before, it doesn't matter if you have some of the best artists, programmers or game designers in the world, the most important thing is the team's synergy.
 
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