Ex Bungie CEO Harold Ryan stealth launched a new studio ProbablyMonsters in 2016 and has now officially revealed that they have two AAA games in development, both of which have been signed by a “major publisher” for a ballpark sum of around $50 million.
Although it has not been revealed what the two new teams, Cauldron Studios and Firewalk Studios, are working on Ryan did add that they are hard at work on a third game that has yet to be signed. The studios have around 70 staff led by groups of “top industry talent” including the ex-senior vp and general manager of the Destiny business unit at Activision, Tony Hsu, and Dave Matthews, who has lead teams that worked on Myst and God of War. Destiny DLC story lead CJ Cowa and former Bungie creative director Ryan Ellis have also jumped ship to join Ryan.
“A bunch of our leaders have been in the industry for 15 to 25 years,” says Ryan. “We’re uniting creative leads and talented people and helping them bring their vision to life to build sustainable, long-lasting studios. You look at the industry and it’s about evolving and being prepared to evolve.”
“Having the experience of having built and launched multiple AAA games with AAA studios is a rare thing to find in a leadership team,” he added. “That’s something our team has a lot of experience in. Marrying that with the ability to attract really talented people and the right business partners to go to market is the combined strength of what we offer to our publishing partners and our developers.”
How the studio came to be named is rather fabulous, “Starting three years ago, we knew our focus was building new AAA studios and that people were going to ask, ‘What’s in your games?,'” said Ryan, “Eh, probably monsters.”
Source: HR
