There have been a number of high-level departures in the past few years Activision Blizzardmany of whom continue to search for their own studio and direct competition with giants.The latest group to emerge from the brain drain is NetEase-backed BulletFarm, which was founded and led by David Vonderhaar, a veteran designer known for his work on call of Duty Treyarch franchise. Even though the game he and his colleagues were working on was a first-person shooter, much of the rest of it, especially the size of the development team, sounded contrary to what Vonderhaar had accomplished for decades. call of Duty.
BulletFarm’s debut, which is yet to be named, will be a first-person shooter developed on Unreal Engine 5 that will “emphasize intimate, cooperative gameplay set in the original universe.” The studio will take a remote-first approach, with headcount expected to grow from the current four employees to approximately 15 by the end of 2024 as development accelerates. Vonderhaar expects the team to grow to about 50 people after that.
talking Entrepreneurial Beatvon der Haar, who Zotreaci Late last year, he claimed that while he never saw himself starting his own studio, doing so was “the last biggest challenge a game maker can face.” After all these years, he felt he owed himself a “moon shot” so he took on the challenge and created something of his own and different from before. Although Vonderhaar is not targeting Treyarch Activision Blizzardhe does seem to shy away from some of the practices that have become synonymous with these studios and their franchises, such as annualization, predatory currency structures, austerity, and minimizing the scale of individual developers’ influence on projects.
Vonderhaar told VentureBeat, “Games are getting older, they’re getting franchised, they’re getting sequels, and the fight is getting to the point where it’s dying. In a way, [BulletFarm] An old-fashioned approach is being taken. ” On the issue of austerity, it is worth noting that Troubled latest call of Duty In the field of gaming, he expressed his belief that leaders in the gaming industry have a responsibility to manage their teams in a more sustainable way for the benefit of developers and players. He also seems to want to give his developers the ability to have a direct impact on the development of their games, which is a given when teams are made up of thousands of developers working on minute details across various studios, all making a single game. impossible. at the same time.
“[The scale] Suitable for the type of game we’re making. Small but thoughtful studio, small but thoughtful games, right? Culturally, it’s better when everyone has a big stake in the game and you’re not designer number 709 working on tree props. I think people get better jobs when they have the opportunity to be exposed to more gaming content than just their area of expertise because they have to do the same thing 1,000 times. “
BulletFarm’s leadership seems committed in almost every way imaginable to learning from past experiences in order to build something better and significantly different from what they’ve done before. Still, development of the upcoming game is still in its early stages, and we shouldn’t expect the team to release full information, let alone a launch, for quite some time. We’ll have to wait and see if BulletFarm’s promising presentation results in a game that lives up to expectations.