Recently, Darrell Gallagher, Studio Head of The Initiative, announced that acclaimed developers like Brian Westergaard, Annie Lohr, Blake Fischer, Christian Cantamessa, and Lindsey McQueeney were now a part of the team. Microsoft founded The Initiative last year so that it could build quality Microsoft exclusives like God of War or Uncharted. It seems like the company has the developers to do just that because these individuals have worked on such games before.
Today, news surfaced that another former Naughty Dog developer had joined The Initiative. Robert Ryan is now the Senior Systems Designer at Microsoft's studio, but he previously worked on games like Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us: Part II. We verified this information through LinkedIn after the post by Twitter user "Klobrille."
Another great talent for XGS. Former Naughty Dog and The Motive Game Designer Robert Ryan joined The Initiative as a Senior Systems Designer. pic.twitter.com/jInUrqcR8CAnother great talent for XGS. Former Naughty Dog and The Motive Game Designer Robert Ryan joined The Initiative as a Senior Systems Designer. pic.twitter.com/jInUrqcR8C— Klobrille (@klobrille) May 10, 2019May 10, 2019
It's great to see that the team is hiring incredibly experienced people. Hopefully we'll get a glimpse of what they're working on at E3 2019. However, given the fact that it takes years to make games, that may not happen. Right now, The Initiative wants to stay small so that it can experiment with a variety of different games.
Apart from that, the team also looks wants to manage expectations because recently Gallagher said that he wants The Initiative "staying small" and "staying agile." Microsoft's first-party lineup has been heavily criticized this generation, so the studio has quite the task ahead of it.
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