Today, Darrell Gallagher, the Studio Head of The Initiative, revealed that acclaimed developers like Brian Westergaard, Annie Lohr, Blake Fischer, Christian Cantamessa, Daniel Neuburger, and Lindsey McQueeney were now a part of the team. Microsoft founded The Initiative this year so that they could build quality Microsoft exclusives like God of War or Uncharted. It seems like the company has the team to do just that because individuals like Westergaard have worked on such games. Westergaard was previously the Senior Managing Producer for Narrative and Animation on God of War at Sony's Santa Monica Studio. He's also worked on Rise of the Tomb Raider in the past.
It's great to see Microsoft hire such individuals. Hopefully this will address the concerns many gamers had that Microsoft wasn't producing enough quality first-party exclusives which rivaled those found on the competition. Games like God of War, Spider-Man, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Horizon Zero Dawn garner a lot of press attention and this is noticed by many gamers who own an Xbox One. Not everyone has the means to purchase all the consoles in order to play all of these games. People crave comparable games on the platform they own.
We'll keep you posted as soon as we know more about what The Initiative is working on. Hopefully the title will be an open-world game which pushes the boundaries of storytelling.
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