Recently, 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 last year so that it 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 before.
However, it seems like the hiring spree isn't over yet. Today, many gamers noticed that God of War's Chris O'Neill LinkedIn page was updated to reflect that he was now working with The Initiative. O'Neill has previously worked at Sony Santa Monica and Kojima Productions. He was the Senior Staff Level Designer on 2018's God of War, a position he retained for four years.
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.
