2K Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two and owner of Gearbox and other studios, has announced the opening of Hanger 13: a new studio that will be brought to focus by an industry veteran. Haden Blackman, who has extensive feelers in the Star Wars universe and worked on The Force Unleashed, among other projects, at LucasArts, has been tapped as this leader, and already has the studio’s philosophy set in stone.
In an interview with Game Industry, Blackman assured that the titles coming out of his studio would revolve around stories feeling “unique” for each player. Blackman went on to clarify this particular studio’s definition of story,
“I don’t just mean a game with a branching narrative, but really the player story that we tell each other, the experience we have in the game, from the moment-to-moment to the macro-effect on the world, the characters and the narrative.”
He says that this kind of experience brings him back to his childhood when he would compare gameplay notes with his siblings for games such as Altered Beasts. To facilitate the ability to deliver these kinds of gaming experience, 2K is allowing Hanger 13 to build everything, including their team and very own engines, from the ground up. Blackman says that these engines will “support the vision of the game” instead of the other way around.
Hanger 13, according to Blackman, is entering into the triple-A landscape with 2K, but hopes to leave some of the accompanying bloat at the door, “I never want to grow so large that there are a bunch of people on the team or in the studio that I don’t know personally by name.” Among the other experience in Hanger 13, people from Assassin’s Creed, Dead Space and Splinter Cell are also a part of this opening studio’s lineage while Blackmen himself has been in the industry for over 15 years.
(Source: Game Industry)
