EA is building a new studio under ex-Monolith Productions VP Kevin Stephens

Gaming goliath Electronic Arts announced today that they're building a new games development studio in Seattle, Washington (courtesy of GamesIndustry.biz). The studio is in the earliest stages of planning and forming, and then petty to no details are available today. What nosotros exercise know is that this new studio will be headed by manufacture legend Kevin Stephens, who was previously the head of evolution on Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Eye-Globe: Shadow of War at Monolith Productions.

Stephens will be accompanied by EA senior VP Samantha Ryan, who has worked with Stephens in the past. The studio lacks even a name at this signal, and information technology'll likely be at least several years before we hear anything from the studio. However, we know that EA is looking to have this studio develop open-world action-adventure games, filling a pigsty in EA's portfolio. Stephens is an expert at this genre of games, so the studio should exist well-equipped to evangelize something special.

EA main studio officer Laura Miele had this to say almost the new studio: "Kevin is an exceptionally talented game developer leader and nosotros expect forwards to supporting him while he builds his team. As someone known for his open-world activity-adventure games, nosotros know players volition exist eagerly awaiting more details on this new studio and its projects."

Stephens and Ryan are going to work on slowly building up the new studio over time, and are withal debating issues like whether or not the studio should be entirely based in Seattle or permit remote workers. Ryan said, "We're still figuring out a lot of foundational questions. How big? What games? How fast to grow? Kevin and I both know how important it is to get the foundations of any studio 'correct' and he'll take his time to effigy it all out. When you lot rush, you don't give yourself time to be thoughtful. Why blitz?"

In that location are still a ton of unknowns virtually the new studio being built by Stephens, but EA mentioned in their announcement that they're planning on sharing more details later this twelvemonth. Hopefully, we'll acquire if the studio plans to piece of work on an all-new IP for EA or on one of the many franchises EA already controls. Whatever the studio accomplishes in the future, information technology'll be interesting to see information technology compared to the all-time games on Xbox.

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