A new internal studio has reportedly been formed at Blizzard, with a view towards making smaller AA-level projects within the company’s existing franchises and IP.
According to a report by Windows Central, Microsoft and Activision have created a “new smaller team within Blizzard comprised of King and various other employees”, and that team will work on games in franchises like Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and more.
Windows Central’s report points to the fact that many employees of King.com, which is a Microsoft subsidiary thanks to its inclusion within the Activision Blizzard umbrella, have recently changed their LinkedIn profiles to reflect a move to Blizzard. According to Windows Central’s “sources”, those moves represent the creation of a new internal development outfit.
The report says that the new studio, which mainly comprises employees from King, is part of a desire on Microsoft’s part to “curate and serve these franchises more prolifically than Activision itself did” prior to the tech giant’s record-breaking acquisition.
As Windows Central points out, King’s involvement in the creation of this studio could indicate that the games being created are intended for mobile, but given that Microsoft appears to be adopting a platform-agnostic approach, we might also see them on PC and Xbox consoles as well, and perhaps even on other platforms in future.
Supposedly, Microsoft is keen to create games that avoid what Windows Central calls “the monstrously ballooning costs facing AAA game development”, a subject about which Microsoft is reportedly anxious. Creating smaller studios that can collaborate with the larger organization is one way in which Microsoft is looking to alleviate these costs.
If you’ve been keeping up with Microsoft news, then you might be wondering how the company’s decision to close Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango and Redfall developer Arkane Austin ties in with this new Blizzard studio’s formation, and, indeed, with Microsoft’s stated aim to develop more “smaller games”.
Well, according to Windows Central’s report, Tango was indeed the right kind of studio for the job, but its location in Japan made “inter-studio collaboration logistically difficult”. Seems like a bit of an overreaction to close the studio down completely for that reason, but I’m not privy to Microsoft’s internal conversations, I suppose.
Microsoft’s decision to create smaller games, and its reported concern about the spiraling costs of AAA development, come amongst widespread layoffs and studio closures in the gaming industry, including staff being let go at companies like Bungie, Sony, and Microsoft itself, among many others.
We’ll have to wait and see what kind of games this new Blizzard studio creates. Stay tuned for more.
