The team at Undead Labs has big plans for the studio's first two projects currently under development: Class 3 and Class 4. So far, we know that Class 3 will be a non-MMO console zombie shoot-em-up game developed for Xbox Live, and Class 4 is intended to be the game that crosses into a massively online world. That's why we were glad to sit down with Jeff Strain, founder of Undead Labs, to hear more details on the studio's gory game goodness, which is surely lurking and primed to pounce on us and eat our brains -- or at least some of our gaming time.
"Today we are excited to announce that the Undead Labs Studio Head and Founder, Jeff Strain, is launching an exciting new initiative."
Great to see that all of Microsoft's new studios are seeing growth now that they are a part of Xbox Game Studios.
Phil Spencer is not only acquiring new studios he ´s making them bigger and better. Great job, Phil!
A studio not headquatered in Washington or California? I..I need to sit down..
Now that the acquisition has slowed down, it all about heavily investing in the studios. We already saw great talent reaching Obsidian, Playground games. the initiative and the Inxile. Ninja theory in the midst of building a new studio in Cambridge and now undead labs are starting a new one.
The only studio that has been under the radar is Compulsion games.
As rumours of ArenaNet employee layoffs have been appearing today, Undead Labs sends a message of support and says that they will do everything they can "to help people find their next great opportunity" and that they will do "their best to coordinate" the job opportunities "with the entire Xbox Game Studios family".
"We’ll do our best to coordinate with the entire Xbox Game Studios family to ensure we have broad representation of opportunity within all of our studios."
Microsoft revealed that it had acquired two more studios: Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment. That brings the total numbers of studios they acquired this year to seven. Microsoft has a lot of confidence in these studios, with Matt Booty, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Studios, even saying that these developers “have the collective creative power and operational excellence to deliver the next industry game changers.”
I personally hope they acquire a couple more studios in 2019. This is the competitive Xbox that the industry has been wanting again for a while. Glad they are back to there roots. Which is games first.
Yeah they seem to be focused on putting the gamer first and less on entertainment apps which is good. I know they added 7 new studios but do you think they'll add more?
It's great they have added studios. What is most important though is what gets developed by these studios. If high quality titles come out of this then it's a win for us gamers. Hopefully this will diversify their lineup. Maybe they can also get Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon sequels though a future partnership with Japanese devs.
Yeah that would be great. I wonder what kind of game we will get from The Initiative.
I have nothing against them getting more, but rapid expansion without any releases seems putting the cart before the horse. Get things in order. What they have now is more than enough to get started, and realistically, about 3 times as much as they needed to quell the criticism from those actually interested in them making more games.
Nonsense as usual. You need studios to make the games. Buying further studios in no way effects the other studios and what they are working on/releasing. It would, however, increase the chances of more quality releases.
Is it though? MS says they want to put all their games on game pass day one. How many of those studios are going to be making AAA games? What kind of quality are you going to get from a sub service. 7 new studios is good. I can't say it isn't. But MS needs to get the ball rolling instead of just trying to do everything at once. 7 Studios, along with what they already had, and before they just keep acquiring studios, start to get a return on investment, and find out what will work for them, and what won't. Otherwise, they have a bunch of studios which start getting too much to manage, and it takes more than just buying studios to make games, but the entire infrastructure behind managing those studios can't just go full throttle and expect to be managed well.
MS haven't just bought these studios by picking the names from a hat. The advantage of buying existing studios is they are already working on projects so MS will already have an idea of what games are coming and ETA's. As for Gamepass, figures already show games sale numbers remain strong and in some cases better as customers are trying games they wouldn't normally play.
@Chris
Care to cite those actual numbers? All I've ever heard about it was MS stating something about it.
I'm well aware of the benefits of MS buying existing studios. Never said that was a bad thing to do, nor that they shouldn't be doing it. I'm stating that rapid expansion is not always a good thing. Throwing money at a problem isn't always a way to fix a problem. I'm sure they'll deliver the games, but if they do too much, too fast, they're going to have more failures than successes, and this is the same kind of thing that makes them fail when they try to buy their way into markets where they either have no presence, or are struggling to have presence. This isn't some random supposition on my part, it is part of MS history. When it comes to the games, those failures are going to lead to them closing studios, which isn't a good thing. MS isn't going to spend all this money on developers that can't bring them what they want. No matter how much they posture now about wanting to be all awesome and so pro-gamer and about being creative and all that other crap that has Xbox fan boys drooling over nothing.
wtf only fanboys wants that, what gamers want to see is for microsoft to "CREATE" new studios not "BUY" studios.
Why? What difference does it make ultimately? Another fanboy trying to find fault where there is none.
I want some JP studios as well, as asian studios overall to truly compete right now. Xbox is american product to most easterners which most don't like.
I know this might not happen but I hope they can talk to Platinum about working on Scalebound again. Honestly I was looking forward to that game. Platinum games are amazing developers.
I doubt this will ever happen, hideki showed his frustrations working with Microsoft on twitter. He even said and i quote *is Microsoft fucking around with me* from there you could tell things weren't going well
Or, they could just build a Japanese studio like they are doing with building the Initiative. I mean, what's stopping them?
That sounds like a cool idea. What games will they make though. JRPGs or action games platnium style?
Maybe they don't have a leader who understands Microsoft's culture and Japanese studio cultute that can lead a team to be both a successful Japanese studio but under MS way of doing business.
Not a knock on anyone, I just wonder if they don't have an executive team that they can trust right now. I believe that they are trying though. There are some great games from x360 that are Japanese studios that are some classics. Here is to hoping they can figure it out and make it happen.
Korea might be a good place to look as well. I think it's an untapped market, mostly pigeonholed as being just mt laced short term MMOs. But they have the ability to make games, and their style can be fairly unique.
Hell no. They damn near killed off a chance at Nier Automata from even existing after the Scalebound debacle what with their enforcement of bs practices that wasn’t in line with what Platinum wanted. Rare has dropped off the face of the Earth pretty much and their once great studio produces nothing worth mentioning. What makes you think any of the western studios they bought are going to produce anything good or anything at all? Most of them I’m betting will just die a long painful death.
Since we're putting requests in, since MS is championing cross-platform cross-platform, I would like them to also release all new games on the Sony platform ;-)
That pretty well says it all.. Microsoft won't budge. They want to play buddy buddy but when it comes down to it, niether Halo nor Gears are on PlayStation hardware. It's a mind game.
Meh, I used to say that for PC before they enacted it, but they barely make any good exclusives, so not a real concern for me these days
i hope they announce what each one is working on at e3. the door is wide open now that sony dropped out for next year.
I doubt they'll announce what each is working on. They Might Spread the announcements.
I think by e3 2020 we might have know what most of the new studios are working on if not all
Not at all...
I only want them announcing games that will ship within the year. I do not like any publisher that talks about games early because there is always a significant chance of cancellation or multiple delays.
Anything farther than a year is not close enough to completion to show.
They're less likely to announce anything if they don't feel like they have to show Sony up on anything. They pretty much have e3 to themselves, as Nintendo competes it a different market.
However, it is likely we will at least hear about one or two new projects. They already implied a new fable game at the last e3. Forza is a given. Likely something about gears. And maybe reveals for a couple of the studios they brought. It might actually be one of ms best conferences when I really think about it.
I'm excited overall. This will keep Sony on it's toes! Will almost certainly get a good single-player xbox- pc title too.
I agree but the issue is moving forward the industry will be very driven by software snd infrastructure. Which sony lacks
Last I checked, Sony has both those things. Software they have more than the competition combined right now. Infrastructure they have works fine, and unlike the competition they already have a working solution to the only new.infrastructure coming, which is game streaming. Pan otherwise is fine outside some things that could be changed to make non operational features more fluid....like the current name change thing.
Sony lacks software?
I only know a certain other company that lacks software severely in comparison, but nothing negative can be said about that company on n4g.
Software has been sony's strength this generation, just in case you've been asleep for the last 5 years. Sony's first party has gone from strength to strength, and once again (for the 300th time I've said this) Sony have doubled down on first party and will continue to deliver next generation. You can't even remotely dispute that.
Sony lacks infrastructure?
Sony bought out Gakai in 2012, JUST in case you've been asleep since before that announcement. So there goes your bogus fanboy claims.
cheers.
