The lead writer of Bioware's Star Wars MMORPG The Old Republic will head up a new studio called Fogbank Games, which is ultimately owned by 21st Century Fox. The media giant also owns film studio 20th Century Fox, and Fogbank's first project is an episodic narrative game inspired by one of the studio's franchises, which include The Simpsons, Alien, Home Alone and Die Hard. I'm looking forward to finding out which one.
The new studio will be part of FoxNext Games, Fox's video game arm. Daniel Erickson will act as studio director—he was the lead writer on The Old Republic and also worked on Dragon Age: Origins before leaving Bioware in 2012. He's since held a number of roles, most recently at Kabam, a mobile game designer.
The rest of the 20-strong team includes executive producer Nathan Germick, who also joins from Kabam, and former Bioware writer Alexander Freed, who will lead the writing team. The studio is looking to double its staff size to 40.
The interesting thing to keep an eye out for is which franchise the team will be working on (episodic Home Alone game, anyone?)—and whether, fingers crossed, its games will make it to PC. An episodic narrative game does seem better suited to PC than mobile.
I also wonder how the new studio will be affected by Disney's impending acquisition of 21st Century Fox, and whether that expands the franchises that Fogbank can work with.
Thanks, Venture Beat.
