Along with the announcement at E3 of the acquisition of prominent studios, including Undead Labs (State of Decay), Compulsion Games (We Happy Few), Ninja Theory (Hellblade), and Playground Games (Forza Horizon 4), Microsoft also introduced The Initiative, a newly-founded studio based in Santa Monica which is also meant to produce exclusive titles for its platforms.
Now studio head Darrell Gallagher has spilled the beans on several members who have just joined the team in California, all of them coming from triple-A, well-known recent projects. The info was pulled from his LinkedIn, and some users over at ResetEra were quick to grab evidence before it disappeared.
The exact names are Brian Westergaard, Annie Lohr, Christian Cantamessa, Blake Fischer, Daniel Neuburger, and Lindsey McQueeney, and they come from companies such as Crystal Dynamics (which is natural given Gallagher was its former head), Rockstar, Respawn, Santa Monica Studio, and other Microsoft divisions. Mostly they've worked on writing and production, but there's also HR and licensing in there too.
With Red Dead Redemption 2 around the corner, fans might like to know Cantamessa was the lead writer for the previous game, while Westergaard was the lead producer for this year's God of War.
What do you think this promising team will create first?