Oftentimes, PlayStation is known for having tons of high profile studios working on secretive projects, but nothing like The Initiative’s secrecy. Xbox is playing their cards as close to its chest as possible with The Initiative, the “quadruple-A” game studio that continues to remain tight-lipped on the game its working on. As a result, rumors continue to fly on what game the studio is developing (like the Perfect Dark rumors), but it is clear the game is a high budget triple-A experience.
From the various reports and evidence from the hiring process, there’s some tangential information that can be gathered on what The Initiative may be working on. Other than the fact that it’s a high-budget Xbox game, it’s very possible The Initiative’s upcoming game will be some kind of action/adventure game based on who’s working on the project. Veterans from franchises like Uncharted, God of War, Grand Theft Auto, and Destiny are joining the project. Here’s all the known developers joining the project and what they bring to the table.
Starting with head of The Initiative’s studio, Darrell Gallagher joined Microsoft back in 2018 at the forming of The Initiative’s studio. Gallagher’s got a very diverse working background in games, beginning his career working with Sony as Head of Creative from 1997-2002. A majority of his game development career was spent as an artist and art director, spending two years as lead artist at Rockstar Games (2002-2004), studio art director at THQ (2004-2005), and director of art at Crystal Dynamics (2005-2016).
Thanks to his work on the Tomb Raider series, he was promoted to executive positions at Square Enix and Activision, before eventually moving on to Microsoft’s The Initiative. Along with helming art direction for the Tomb Raider series for a decade, his tenure as head of development at Square Enix and Activision had him overseeing production on several high profile triple-A games: Hitman, Just Cause 3, Destiny 2, Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy, and several more in between. Frankly it’s an impressive resume that’s perfectly suited for The Initiative’s Studio Head.
Over time, numerous Naughty Dog developers have joined The Initiative’s ranks in the last two years. A former animator for Uncharted 4, one of the best looking games on PS4, Sylvia Chambers is joining The Initiative’s development team. Chambers is mostly responsible for 3D character animation, and will be performing a similar role for Xbox’s studio. More recently, The Initiative also hired on character shader technical director Lauren Garcia, who was a technical director on The Last of Us Part 2. Additionally, systems engineer Robert Ryan joined The Initiative as a Senior Systems Designer, who’s previous work includes both The Last of Us and Uncharted.
Alongside Naughty Dog veterans, several God of War developers have also joined The Initiative’s team. Erik Jakobsen, former environmental artist for God of War, also joined The Initiative’s studio. Additionally, the former senior managing producer on God of War, Brian Westergaard, joined The Initiative studio as well. Xbox is drawing talent from three of PlayStation’s biggest franchises for its next project, so already the project is very promising.
There’s also a huge team of narrative directors and writers joining The Initiative’s studio as well, drawing from various different storytellers across the industry. Bungie’s former narrative lead Christine Thompson, who worked on several of Destiny 2‘s story campaigns, is joining the narrative team. Another lead writer from Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption, Christian Cantamessa joins the narrative team as a consultant as well. Not to mention the various members of the team from Crystal Dynamics, who worked to reboot Tomb Raider as well.
There’s also several other engineers and designers from a variety of other backgrounds who’ve joined The Initiative, some of which come from Microsoft as well as outside sources. Dan Neuburger, also a Crystal Dynamics alum like Gallagher, has about 12 years of engineering experience from the Tomb Raider series. Microsoft veteran Blake Fischer also joins the studio as someone who’s racked up 16 years of experience as a senior director of portfolio planning at Microsoft.
For now, The Initiative’s game hasn’t really been shown in a public capacity, but there’s been a lot of discussion about it on the part of Microsoft and Xbox. The game’s already in a playable state, and Xbox head Phil Spencer has already tried the game out for himself. The Initiative’s efforts likely won’t be shown off until next year, but supposedly this huge triple-A game is coming along quite well.
The Initiative‘s unannounced game is currently in development.
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