The Initiative Hires Former Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward, Blizzard Devs - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 04 January 2021 / 2,644 Views
Microsoft's first-party studio, The Initiative, has been hiring talented video game developers who have worked on high-profile AAA titles at a steady rate and the trend has continued in recent months. The studio has hired former Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward, Blizzard, Insomniac, and Santa Monica Studio developers.
Nothing is confirmed what The Initiative is currently developing. However, Head of Xbox Phil has previously said the studios is working on new and old things. There was a rumor the studio is working on a new third-person game set in the Perfect Dark universe.
Check out a list of the recent hires below:
- Giovanni Martinez, senior environment artist since September following 4.5 years as environment artist at Insomniac
- Hawar Doghramachi, senior graphics engineer since October, having most recently spent almost four years as a graphics programmer at Naughty Dog
- Jaime Molina, environment artist since August, following over two years in the same role at Infinity Ward
- Jolyon Myers, principal world builder since October, having previously spent over a decade at Infinity Ward as expert designer
- Joseph Than, a producer who has just joined following almost three years as a producer at Blizzard
- Lauren Manuel Garcia Carro, senior shader tech artist since October, having most recently spent three years as a character shading TD at Naughty Dog
- Lee Davis, lead gameplay animator since October following over a decade as an animator at Naughty Dog
- Maxwell Morrison, QA lead since August who is the owner of his own QA consulting firm and has held roles at Id Software, Riot and Gearbox
- Nigel Loster, gameplay designer since October who previously held the same role for five years at The Coalition
- Pasquale Scionti, senior environment/lighting artist since August who has freelanced for Epic Games and has extensive Unreal Engine experience
- Sarah Swenson, environment artist since October, having held the same role at Santa Monica Studio and before that at Naughty Dog
- Stephen Clayburn, principal lead online services engineer since September, having spent over three years in engineering roles at Blizzard
- Victor Chavez, senior animator, who most recently spent over four years as an animator at Amazon Game Studios
Thanks, VideoGameChronicles.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Can't wait to see what games they produce!
I'd rather see MS continue this tactic of hiring industry professionals for a new studio, than buying out existing studios. Create new IPs and games, instead of buying out existing IPs and games.
I'm fine with either approach. They need to give people reasons to buy the Xbox. I have the option to play any games regardless of where it's released though so I tend to not care about this kind of stuff.
I'm not so sure Xbox will be ready to compete in 2023 or 2024 either. They might though.
Bethesda's main RPG team hasn't made anything good since Fallout 4, and FO76 was horrible. Wolfenstein Youngblood was bad. I have high hopes for Arakane and Fable reboot. Forza has about as much appeal to me as the yearly CoD, or Madden. The initiative could be good. We'll see. Avowed should be good since it's Obsidian. State of Decay has always been a bad series. Sony is releasing great 1st party content on day one. MS will have to play catchup, and I expect that not all of their development efforts will pan out. So I don't see MS really competing with Sony in terms of 1st party content until 2025 or later.
In that case, I'm looking forward to Starfield and Wolfenstein. Now to see if MS makes them exclusive or eventually publishes to PS5.
