Former Blizzard developer Matt Schembari has announced that he is founding a new studio. The studio, called Lightforge Games, was founded about a year ago and is just now making itself publicly known.
Schembari spent over eight years at Blizzard followed by five years at Epic Games. There has been a number ofnew studios being formed by Blizzard veteransas of late, such as Dreamhaven. Lightforge Games, however, is also co-founded by four other veterans of the industry that previously worked at a mix of Epic Games and Blizzard.
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The announcement of the studio came from a talk Schembari did with IGN, where he sheds some light on the company’s interesting structure. Schembari says that Lightforge Games will be developing entirely remote as part of its ethos to “embrace empathy.”
Schembari says that doing so will allow developers working for the company to not have to upend their lives and move to entirely new cities to work with them, and the company has been entirely built around working remotely. Of course, many studios such asWarner Bros. have had to work remotely as a consequence of the ongoing pandemic, but this is the first time an entire studio has been built from the ground up to do so.
Schembari does not go into much detail on what the studio is currently working on, but he does say that it is in the RPG genre. He also gives some information on what goals the project is aspiring for. He compares it to thecommunal experience of games likeMinecraftandDungeons and Dragonsthat sees players coming together through joint creation. Schembari says that the team’s expertise caters well to that type of experience, but that the game will also look to build a proper RPG experience through the lens of social interaction and creation.
Of course, only time will tell what Lightforge Games has in store for the games industry, but the new company’s approach towards treating its employees with empathy and care seems like a great start. This is especially true with the recent awareness being drawn towardscrunch periods in the games industry on big titles likeBioShock Infinite. Many gamers have been calling for such crunch periods to be avoided, and Lightforge Games' approach to its structure seems as though it could achieve that goal. Hopefully, Lightforge Games will have something to release about what it has been working on soon.
