Former developers from Epic Games and Blizzard have formed Lightforge Games, a new studio that seeks to change how RPGs are played. Their new project is a cross-platform social game that aims to give players the power to create worlds and tell stories with unprecedented freedom.
“We all love highly social, creative games, and we particularly love games where players drive the narrative. We are looking to combine elements from Minecraft or Roblox with tabletop RPGs to form a new way to play roleplaying games. Given our backgrounds, making a game that looks to revolutionize RPGs was an obvious choice.”
– CEO Matt Schembari
$5 million was raised with investments from Galaxy Interactive, NetEase Games, Dreamhaven, Maveron, 1Up Ventures, and angel investors from the gaming and tech industries. Dreamhaven CEO Mike Morhaime described their game as having tons of potential, and being excited to see what this team of veterans can produce.
A Team Of Veterans
Lightforge was founded by industry veterans Matt Schembari, Dan Hertzka, Nathan Fairbanks, Glenn Rane, and Marc Hutcheson. Additionally, six experienced developers have since been added to the team. The team collectively brings experience from Epic, Blizzard, Riot, Bioware and Zenimax Online.
Furthermore, the studio is all-remote, meaning their workers can work and live pretty much anywhere. Matt Schembari explained their decision. “Empathy for players and developers alike is at the core of everything we do. Building a fully remote company allows each team member to live wherever is best for their life situation.”
Lightforge Games is currently hiring, so anyone looking to contribute can check out their career page. They are currently looking for influencers and community managers, a lead 3D character artist, and a lead animator.
In conclusion, hopefully their work environment means this will be a good studio to work for. So no doubt it will be exciting what this new social game entails.
So what do you think of the studio? Is this a project you’re excited for? Let us know in the comments!