The new and mysterious Xbox and Activision studio 'Elsewhere Entertainment' has expanded hiring across into Sweden "to craft a franchise with an enduring legacy"

What you need to know

• A few weeks ago, Microsoft and Activision unveiled Elsewhere Entertainment, a new studio based in Poland, tipped to work on a brand new "AAA" narrative-led "genre defining" game. 
• The studio has been relatively quiet since, but they're quite clearly cooking up something interesting in the background. 
• Today, Activision unveiled 20 new positions within Elsewhere, including an expansion to Sweden as well. 
• Sweden is a global leader in game development, featuring developers like DICE (Battlefield), Ubisoft's Massive (The Division 2), and Mojang (Minecraft). 
• Microsoft and Activision also recently boosted its mobile games team within Blizzard, comprised of King veterans. 

The video game industry has seen some unprecedented churn in recent years, partially triggered by the wave of instability in the post-pandemic economy. Evolving user behavior, stretched budgets, and high interest rates have all contributed to a difficult time for the video game industry, but there are some optimistic green shoots if you keep your eye out for it. 

A few weeks ago, Microsoft subsidiary and prolific mega-publisher Activision unveiled Elsewhere Entertainment. Unexpectedly and out of nowhere, Activision revealed that Elsewhere Entertainment is working on a brand new "AAA" narrative-based franchise, which the firm hopes will redefine the entire genre. 

"Built from the ground up, Elsewhere Entertainment is a premier and standalone studio dedicated to establishing an environment that inspires bold and diverse ideas. The team’s underlying mission encourages everyone to explore and collaborate creatively to craft a franchise with an enduring legacy that resonates far beyond games.

The talented team at Elsewhere Entertainment consists of a collection of storytelling experts whose credits include The Last of Us, Uncharted, The Witcher, Cyberpunk, Destiny, Tom Clancy’s The Division, and Far Cry."

While the studio has been quiet since its reveal, that's by no means an indication that they aren't firmly cooking. Today, a range of new vacancies was just shared by Activision on LinkedIn, specifically tipped for Elsewhere Entertainment. What makes this particularly interesting is that Elsewhere Entertainment appears to have expanded its hiring net to Sweden. 

Sweden is a global leader in video game development, with a huge array of major studios and franchises being developed and based in Malmö in particular. To name just a few, studios like Frictional Games (SOMA), IO Interactive (Hitman), King (Candy Crush), Ubisoft Massive (The Division), Tarsier (Little Nightmares), and many more hail from Malmö, which has become a major tech hub within Sweden in recent years. More broadly, Sweden is also home to companies like EA DICE and Mojang of Minecraft fame, making it quite a prolific pool of talent to tap into. 

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What could Elsewhere Entertainment be working on?

So far, there's not even the vaguest rumor about what Elsewhere Entertainment could be working on. We know it's a new "AAA" franchise, which means it won't be from any existing series in Activision's extensive catalogue. They won't be a support studio for the likes of Call of Duty, and they aren't working on mobile games either. It's an unexpected move for Activision generally speaking, which have focused heavily on service games and mobile in recent years, which is why the company ended up selling for a record-breaking $72 billion to Microsoft last year.  

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The "narrative-based" aspect of Elsewhere Entertainment's initial pitch is also quite vague. Does that mean it'll be a narrative adventure game, or "walking sim" analogous to Hellblade 2? Or, could it be a more complex but narrative-heavy action game, along the lines of God of War or Final Fantasy 16? The fact that they're hiring for physics engineers, user experience designers, NPC behavior engineers, and even a dedicated weapons artist suggests that it could very well be the former. The wait may be long, but given the pedigree of talent joining the studio, it may be worth the wait.