Key talent behind Microsoft’s Forza series has left Playground Games to form a new AAA studio

Some of the leaders behind the Forza Horizon series have formed a new AAA games studio in Leamington Spa called Maverick Games.

The team is led by studio head and creative director Mike Brown, who was previously the creative director on the Forza Horizon franchise. He is joined by other ex-Playground veterans including executive producer Tom Butcher, CTO Matt Craven, content director Gareth Harwood and audio director Fraser Strachan. Ben Penrose has joined the company as Art Director from Sharkmob (but was also a former Playground employee), and Elly Marshall has been named UX/UI Director, following her role as experience design director at EA.

Running the studio itself is COO Harinder Sangha. Sangha is an award-winning studio leader who helped form Sega Hardlight and Sumo Leamington.

The company currently has ten employees, with the aim to grow to 140. And it is working on an open-world premium AAA game for consoles and PC.

[Simundo]

Sony should buy them. For the Lol's

[crazyCoconuts]

I think it's nice to see independent studios can still exist. I'd rather they stay that way

[Simundo]

It was sarcasm. In that I think the opposite to what I've said and was using the words as a way to mock and insult MS's current policy of spending tens of billions buying truck loads of devs/publishers. I'm a little disappointed Coco to be honest. I would of thought someone with the name crazyCoconuts might of been a bit more attuned to such attempts at humour even if they didn't find it outright funny in itself. Just a little bit of recognition of yeah I see what you tried to do there.

[SonyStyled]

Media Molecule was created by ex Lionhead devs, and Sony bought Mm in 2010

[crazyCoconuts]

Sorry man. My craziness usually manifests in the evening after a few beers. In the morning I'm boringPeanuts

[Knushwood Butt]

Media Molecule, what are they working on?

[SonyStyled]

@Kushwood, Mm was making games in Dreams for a few years after launch. Not sure if there’s a team that still does. The same year Dreams launched they announced the studio was expanding. That’s the last I heard of them in the news.

Quick search: it looks like they are focused on a mp project.

[Knushwood Butt]

@SonyStyled

Thanks.

[Simundo]

@crazyCoconuts Nice. That's more like the Coco I was envisaging from the name. Faith restored. Maybe consider not limiting your drinking to just the evenings. That way your can be at your funnest all day.

[shinoff2183]

Fing hilarious

[Simundo]

@shinoff2183 Thank you. People take this stuff far to seriously.

[lelo2play]

Wouldn't be surprising... Sony already purchased Bungie.

As for Microsoft, loosing talent from one of their best studios isn't good news. It looks like their gaming studios are a mess, without real leadership. Lets hope they actually release games in 2023.

[Chevalier]

Well they have 2 games coming so its already better than last year.

[jznrpg]

MS never owned Bungie

[DarXyde]

Talent from a very capable studio leaving definitely comes with a change in the output of a product, but whether or not it's a bad sign is up for debate in my opinion.

Naughty Dog lost Bruce Straley, but they're still a top-tier studio that I would arguably call the world's first "true AAAA game developer". Did it impact The Last of Us Part II? I mean...I think so. The narrative elements appealed more to the emotional aspect of social issues than the first game. Ultimately, I thought it was a better product, but I still love both.

Very plausible that Playground will take a different direction, but may not necessarily be worse.

What I think it might mean though is people are leaving to protect their reputation within the industry... And if so, why? My guess is Fable might be in hot water. I don't blame them and it's quite a pivot from their comfort zone. Not all pivots are bad (Guerilla did it beautifully), but sometimes, it doesn't work. I do hope the outcome is positive and Fable isn't negatively impacted, but we'll see.

[KillBill]

@jznrpg "On June 19, 2000, on the ninth anniversary of Bungie's founding, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Bungie and that Bungie would become a part of the Microsoft Game Division." And it remained that way until 2007 were it and Microsoft announced that Bungie was splitting from Microsoft and "becoming a privately held limited liability company named Bungie, LLC".

[Jin_Sakai]

For those wondering who left Playground Games.

1. Tom Butcher, Lead Producer
2. Mike Brown, Creative Director
3. Matt Craven, Technical Director
4. Gareth Harwood, Technical Art Director
5. Ben Penrose, Art Director
6. Frasher Stachan, Audio Director

[1Victor]

Simundo “ Sony should buy them. For the Lol's “
And call their new game
Grand Turismo Horizons🤣

[1Victor]

It’s a joke don’t take it too seriously 🤷🏿

[SullysCigar]

Actually, New Horizons would have been an awesome name for their new studio! Cheeky too, which is always a good thing!

[Simundo]

Like it, you're an idea's man and I feel you know this industry more completely than the legion of mini Michael Patcher's running amok in the comments.

[TheSaint]

41 and counting that didn't realise the obvious joke.

[Simundo]

44 have though so sanity just about prevails. But who knows why people get riled by such things. It could be 41 MS fans who totally got it but took Umbrage to them being lightly mocked.

[sammarshall102]

It sounds like a big reason for them leaving is control, they want to be more creative and take risks

I guess Microsoft really haven't changed as far as not giving their devs creative freedom

[crazyCoconuts]

I think that's the interesting thing about purchasing these big $ game studios- after the contracts for retention bonuses are over, people are free to move, and a company is little more than a collection of people. Sure, MS may own the IP, but IP can be trashed very quickly by crappy products that result from good people leaving

[sammarshall102]

Yeah true and I think that even if MS get Activision Blizzard, they will see a lot of the workforce leave to either start up a studio or leave for another existing studio

[SullysCigar]

As Halo has demonstrated.

[blackblades]

What sully said and other games as well. Then again CoD did fine without the OG crew.

[crazyCoconuts]

Oh and I don't mean to say MS can't retain this talent. I don't rightly know... People move around all the time so I don't know specifics on this one in particular. But, obviously history would indicate this is NOT something MS has done well in the past, as evidenced by their games typically going down hill

[dumahim]

It does seem to happen quite a bit with MS and EA purchased companies, though, doesn't it?

[dumahim]

FH5 felt like they were short-staffed and rushed. A lot of stuff didn't work correctly early on. Lots of little and not so little errors. I mean, even now some of the loading screens show I've completed more events than are possible, like found more roads than exist, more signs, and I think I've photographed like 10 more cars than it shows as the max. All I hear is complaints about the seasonal updates being lazy and not enough. I think they're fine, but I sure would appreciate at least more custom race events tied to seasonal event instead of going through the same races over and over with different cars. I mean, Playground doesn't even need to create them. Just hand pick some from the user created stuff.

Is this because of MS? Dunno, but I wish them luck with their new company.

Oh, I just remembered. Isn't Playground also working on the new Fable? The link isn't working, but I wonder if some of this has something to do with that as well.

[Lightning77]

If that were true Pentiment would of gotten canceled Grounded would of never gotten off the ground. Obsidian would only have to focus on Avowed and nothing else. I also believe The Coalition is making a smaller game before releasing the next Gears. They're still hands off. Mike Brown wants to have control over his own studio, to run his own studio. The opportunity came up and he took it.

Sucks for MS but good for the industry. More less owned studios the better.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

Notice how all the games you mentioned were small games that aren't expensive? Notice how the new studio being created is for a premium AAA game?

"More less owned studios the better."

Funny coming from someone defending the Activision deal.

[gangsta_red]

@Outside

Notice that these companies mentioned have the freedom to create smaller games and not be tied down to just doing big triple A games? How many other devs under huge publishers can do this?

Notice how this is common in the industry for a group to go off on their own and create their own studio, a reason we have a good amount of "spiritual successor" games.

[Lightning77]

"Notice how all the games you mentioned were small games that aren't expensive? "

Notice how all those studios are still making AAA games alongside smaller projects.

"Funny coming from someone defending the Activision deal."

Oh I have? Link me to Where I've defended the deal? Go ahead It's sounds like you're one of those kids who sees what they wanna see.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

https://n4g.com/news/249945...

Eh, The point is they aren't taking the risk on the AAA level. Low budget/side project games are less of a risk. Microsoft are buying well established ips and studios for a reason. Stuff like Recore and Scalebound have failed them in the past. Hence why these guys are creating their own studio to take risks on the AAA level.

[darksky]

Microsoft would have made them make Forza games only but devs probably got bored doing the same thing constantly. No doubt new people will take over Forza development so I doubt MS will care much.

[porkChop]

What? You realize Playground aren't just Forza? They're also working on the new Fable.

[porkChop]

I mean all we've been seeing is MS stepping back and letting their devs do whatever they want. A strategy that sometimes doesn't work out (Halo Infinite). So it wouldn't make sense that control or publisher interference would be an issue. The article also shows that they loved working at Playground. They just wanted to try something else and that's fine. Good for them.

[Knushwood Butt]

Halo Infinite is an example of MS letting the devs do what they want?!?!

[porkChop]

I said Halo Infinite is an example of that strategy not always working out. 343 was given total freedom to do what they wanted. Maybe if they had better management it would have worked out better. Maybe if MS had been a bit more hands-on they would have been able to right the ship.

[Knushwood Butt]

'343 was given total freedom to do what they wanted.'.

Interesting. I didn't know that.

[Lightning77]

@Outside How is that defending the purchase when literally everyone said MS needs to use their trillions buy up a studio? Instead they bought up a publisher. Here they are using their trillions to buy stuff. But you don't want them to use it like that "that's not fair" is what I'm getting. We're talking about MS spending habits not me defending the ABK stuff. Btw there was another article where I said it's not good MS is buying ABK or whole publishers, but there's nothing we can do about it just like Sony keeping certain 3rd parties to themselves. It sucks but it is what it is. Nice try hard cherry pick comment though.

"Eh, The point is they aren't taking the risk on the AAA level. Low budget/side project games are less of a risk."

Ummm What's redfall, Forza 8, Starfield and Hellblade 2? They're AAA games. Are you ok?

[sammarshall102]

I wish them the best of luck. I wonder if any of them were working on Fable

[RaidenBlack]

Damn ... so many new studios popping up ....
and guess what ... its all good news & profit increase for Epic Games & Tim Sweeney.
All these new studios will end up adopting UE, coz that's the easy route, instead of building proprietary engines.
that's good news for Console gamers, coz more frequent shiny new games.
but bad news for PC games .... coz more shader compilation stutters and botched launches.

[Profchaos]

Not always unity is still a viable option also. And for many indie games they won't be pushing nanite and lumen anyway so why not

[SurgicalMenace]

All the grand exoduses experience recently are more telling of a troubled environment. Perhaps all the acquisitions are a testament to just how bad things really are in their gaming division.

[gangsta_red]

How would more acquisitions be a testament to how bad things are in the gaming division, considering they were under MS for longest?

This is common in the gaming industry. We always see veterans or groups go off and start their own studio.

Let's not turn this into a doom scenario

[MegaLogic]

But you're asking an irrational group of people to act rational. There is even someone on this thread trying to trash FH5 🤣

[SurgicalMenace]

At a company's lowest point of production, there are constant reports that they lose their top talent. How is that not an indicator? If a company knows this internally, how would you imagine they'd aim to fix it? Acquisitions. Why so many SUDDEN purchases from a company that's done nothing but reduce their in-house development over the last 15 years? With most of these individuals under contracts MS is very well aware of their departure ahead of time. I mean, it was just a question if it's nothing then it's nothing.

[DigitalDaniel]

It's been a thing since the videogames industry started, like you said. Nothing new or spectacular about it. But as soon as it has something to do with Xbox, the usual suspects coming in hot with their console war mentality.

[crazyCoconuts]

Outside looking in, with our limited info, we end up with different "rational" conclusions.
For example, I see poor performance from MS in managing their existing studios and IPs. My "rational" approach would NOT be to purchase MORE studios to compound the impact of my mismanagement. I would think the approach would be to fix the ones I have and rely on more exclusive 3rd party agreements for a better chance for success until I get my house in order.
But Xbox mgmt must have other data or a different perception that makes their approach more rational. Maybe they just need to sink a ton of excess cash into investments to avoid inflation, dunno lol

[The Wood]

Maybe it does happen but to lose/get rid of such important people within one studio on mass is a little suss. You have to admit that at least.

[gangsta_red]

@thewood

The people who formed this studio are ex employees from Playground. A few of them had current positions at other studios. There wasn't a mass exodus at once from Playground.

What it looks like is one of the heads formed a studio and he poached talent of former employees he worked with.

[shinoff2183]

Cause they have more studios then the competition and can't keep up. Having to buy a multiplatform publisher x 2 to keep up.

[Orchard]

They sure waited a while to leave though, going on 5 years after they got acquired. Perhaps they just wanted to do something new? They've been at Playground for 13-14 years.

And if it's a troubled environment, it's a troubled environment that most companies would love to have - let's not forget that FH5 was the top rated exclusive of 2021, beating out games like SM3D World, Returnal, Ratchet

[SurgicalMenace]

What do review scores have to do with revenue streams?

[Orchard]

Didn't they just announce revenue for FY22 that broke all previous fiscal years?

Also GP revenue has exceeded 3bn dollars.

Seems like the revenue stream is fine, no?

[SierraGuy]

@orchard... revenue and profit are two very different things.

[gangsta_red]

"At a company's lowest point of production,"

Okay, it's obvious you have no idea what you're talking about and your goal is to just troll anything MS related. Playground has consistently made top tier Forza games and have currently been given Fable to develop. Exactly what low are you referring to? Because it's certainly not Playground.

"Why so many SUDDEN purchases from a company that's done nothing but reduce their in-house development over the last 15 years?"

What does that have to do with Playground? I'm not even sure what this statement means anyways, as it has nothing to do with any points I made.

[SurgicalMenace]

MS as a whole has been at a very low production rate, but let's just choose Playground to cater to your narrative. So why would talent from a highly productive sector choose to leave if all was well? It would make more sense if it was just them, but it's not. This is happening across the board at MS. Let's ignore that to dismiss this as the norm when it's not. This is not a time where it should be the norm unless something isn't being satisfied.

[gangsta_red]

"MS as a whole has been at a very low production rate, but let's just choose Playground to cater to your narrative."

Cater? This story is directly about Playground, how is this catering to my narrative?

"So why would talent from a highly productive sector choose to leave if all was well?"

You realize that it wasn't a bunch of employees leaving all at once while employed at Playground do you? That a lot of them were already ex Playground employees that were working at other studios and we're brought together through common acquaintances.

"This is happening across the board at MS."

No, it's not, people leave companies all the time. Industry veterans form their own studios all the time. Industry employers always contact and bring in people they worked with in the past, this is a tech standard.

You seriously have no idea what you're talking about. You just use these moments to speak negatively about MS even if they have no relation to the actual article at hand.

[SurgicalMenace]

It's entertaining to see just how serious you guys are. This is a comment section. It's not that serious. I'm was speculating or just throwing out a theory, and you got all up in arms.🤣 Bro, who am I to you? Nobody....the same as you are to me. We come together to shoot the shit about unimportant nonsense, log off, and hopefully live a joyfully rich life. No sweat, dude, you're right. MS is the best, I just threw every other system I own into a tub of beef broth and subscribed to GP for the rest of my life. My kids are going to be so proud of me. This is the greatest experience I've ever had. You were right, man, I was blind but now I see. Such a weight off of my shoulders now that that ill built console with all the cool stuff on it has now joined the abysmal levels of the netherrealm. XB forever!! XB forever!! Sintendo be baptized in the cleansing waters of redemption found only at MS headquarters. Let the church say, "Game Pass."

[CrimsonWing69]

Burnt out making the same thing, more than likely. I don’t blame them. Honestly, I think annual releases ruin a franchise. There should be various projects to create a gap and then a return to a series. Let these studios spread out their creativity for new games.

[crazyCoconuts]

I agree. I thought I read somewhere that Playground was doing something other than Forza next though

[darthv72]

yeah... Fable

[crazyCoconuts]

Ah. So maybe they didn't like that charter either. I know I wouldn't.

[crazyCoconuts]

You know...I bet Double Fine would make a good Fable

[DOMination-]

Good job FH isn't an annual franchise then!

[darkrider]

Very bad news for Microsoft. Playground losing talent. When can't keep some of their leaders, we'll it doesn't matter if got 23 or 40 studios...

[darthv72]

We don't really know anything. The fable game they were working on was supposed to be open world and here is this little team splitting off to make an open world game. Just speculation but what if this is the team making fable? Them splitting off to do this leaves others at playground free to work on forza horizon again. it all just seems so coincidental with the news not long ago about fables development. And them taking on such a departure from their usual is taking a risk.

Do you see where im going with this?

[Shadowsteal]

There's already 2 separate teams at Playground. They didn't stop developing Forza Horizon to develop the Fable game.

[darkrider]

What we know it's that playground lost talent when they are deep working in multiple games. Not after the games are over. During...

[Flawlessmic]

If that were true darth that means nothing on fable has been worked on for 3 yrs and the game is atleast another 6 years away loll

[blackblades]

Conspiracy theory, theory, made up you seeing where I'm going with this

[Orchard]

No need for doom and gloom. It's likely not 'very bad news'.

How hands on do you think leadership actually are in a game studio? They barely have any input on the game at all. If anything, senior level designers etc. are more critical.

[The Wood]

Lol. Relentless capoeira

[darkrider]

So why are even talking. I really can't understand why this is even news.... No need for damage control. Playground lost talent. That's the only fact. And it's wasn't only one person that left. That another fact.

[Orchard]

We're talking about it because industry veterans formed a new studio.

These guys (and ladies) weren't sitting down to design gameplay elements. Way below their pay grade.

[Kekewei]

Bad news for MS only, but good news for players I think.

[SierraGuy]

This is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off at one of your most deared development studios.

Let's not sugar coat it.

[Orchard]

@Sierra was it a nuclear bomb when it happened at Sony Santa Monica, Naughty Dog and Guerilla?

Nope. Wasn’t then and it isn’t now.

[GamingSinceForever]

Congrats!!!

[Orchard]

I will be interested to see what their studio comes up with. Must be refreshing to work on something new after so many years at Playground just making Forza.

[badz149]

I swear some people on this site were saying that the devs were happy to be bought by MS and will be given creative freedom with massive funding backed by MS. yeah...they are so happy, they quit and make themselves a new independent studio so they can be bought again, right?

[Orchard]

How do you know this is tied to being acquired by Microsoft? They were acquired ~5 years ago. Takes way less than 5 years to job hunt / start up a new business.

If I were working at an smaller independent studio, I would certainly be happy to be bought out by MS/Sony/Nintendo/EA/Activision /T2, just for the job security alone.

[Rocketisleague]

Yeah starting your own company is LESS stressful than working for a large multinational.

[darkrider]

We know who says that any dev is happy to be bought by Microsoft that in generations didn't let their studios create nothing more (triple A) then halo forza and gears and lost their flagship studio bungie because that... Freedooom

[Knushwood Butt]

Yeah, same for Ninja Theory.

[gangsta_red]

Yeah, because it's unheard of for industry veterans to leave stable and successful publishers to start their own studios...

https://www.ign.com/article...

[isarai]

Bring back that glorious mid-tier baby! That's where the magic was back in the day

[monkey602]

I've been saying for a long time now that the acquisitions will birth a renaissance. The true talent will form new studios and we'll finally get the creative juice in the medium so desperately needed. The market is absolutely saturated with property fatigue.
Who cares if EA, Ubi, Activision, Square or any of the old dogs get bought up?! Most of them are well over their prime anyway and afraid to take any risks. I can only imagine contractual obligations are stifling them.

[TheColbertinator]

The audio director from Playground deserves so much credit. Sound has been superb from the Forza Horizon games

[tay8701]

That's a pretty big hit. One of the only studios MS has that consistently does a good job. Ofcourse it wasnt good when things happened with naughty dog, but they are an elite studio and had plenty of great people to rise up and take thr reigns. Be curious to see how this impacts them.

[Tex4242]

This seems to be a big thing around the gaming sphere when it's really not. This happens all the time at multiple developers from MS, Sony, Nintendo, etc. Sometimes people get tired of making the same games constantly, or sometimes it's just the right time to follow your dreams. It's easier than ever to be an independent studio, or just make games in general. It's just whether what you make is good or not. Good luck to them all. I'm sure they will do even more great things.

[Destiny1080]

does phil have a ten year backup plan

[Aloymetal]

Lmao!

[generic-user-name]

Playground is MS's most consistent studio. Looking forward to seeing what the new studio make first.

[frostypants]

Yay. Another open world game. What we've all been begging for....

[r2oB]

Microsoft doesn't have a good track record of maintaining quality when handing off their major IPs to different people. Gears of War and Halo went downhill. I don't know if people just lack the talent or if Microsoft just chooses the wrong people to lead the projects. Either way, if history is an indicator of anything it's that Microsoft is going to have a challenge on their hands maintaining the quality of Forza Horizon now that they have to choose a new creative director.

[DrDoomer]

Holy crap, microsoft's best franchise by far just took a hell of a hit.