Rocksteady co-founders Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker have announced the formation of a new development studio called Hundred Star Games, based in London. They've apparently amassed a staff of some 25 developers and aim to expand to a sustainable 100 "industry veterans and emerging talents", presumably putting them to work on something entirely new.
Word comes to us by way of Polygon, with the eagle-eyed outlet spotting Hill and Walker listed as directors of Hundred Star Games on corporate data website Endole. Reviewing LinkedIn profiles, Polygon says that a handful of lead developers and director-level ex-Rocksteady employees have already left the similarly London-based Arkham studio to see what this new outfit is cooking.
The company was incorporated back on 21st February 2023 and are currently hiring. Hundred Star Games also has a write-up on the UK workplace rating site, Great Places to Work, which reads: “Hundred Star Games is a video game start-up based in East London. Our ethos is of creating a small team of only 100 industry veterans and emerging talents, who are committed to crafting cutting-edge gaming experiences that inspire and captivate players worldwide."
Hill and Walker left Rocksteady partway through the development of the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League in October of 2022 to "pursue a new adventure in gaming". The game was supposedly "nearly finished" back then and (barring another delay at the eleventh hour) is currently slated to launch at the end of the month, on 30th January, on PS5.
Are you excited to see Hill and Walker getting a new studio together? Do you think they will make games in a similar style as Rocksteady or take things in an all-new direction? Prognosticate in the comments section below.
[source polygon.com, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 26
This is good news. Let's hope their new ip is as good if not better than the batman games.
@Northern_munkey that’s all we can hope for 😂
100 people then is smaller scale than rocksteady so presumably not AAA games
Please no more superherocrap
Except something in the vein of the latest The Batman movie
As i said previously on a suicide squad article, Rocksteady is not the same company that released the arkham trilogy. With lots of its senior talent having left the studio you have to ask if WB had been pushing the studio in a direction it didnt want with SS and the live service model. I'll watch the work of hundred star games with interest.
Definitely looking forward to their new IP. I hope they remain independent, not being acquired by anyone.
My eyes read they were making 100 Star Wars games. Haha.
@Rob_230 Summed it up better than I could! Wonder how many ex-Rocksteady staff have already moved to the new studio?
Not to say it doesn't happen elsewhere,(eg: Uncharted 4's rocky development crunch even with a successful game at the finish but came at a price). That's where despite the flashy trailer I'll wait for what sort of campaign GTA VI turns out yet....when the publishers push their best creatives from "Is it fun to play" to how much can we monetise the mechanics it's never a good thing,agreed!👍
Will definitely be keeping an eye on these guys! It was pretty obvious they jumped from a sinking ship when they left Rocksteady before getting Suicide Squad out. Looking forward to what they show us one day!
@Sequel Yes!
Seems to be the usual pattern:
1) evil overlords take over studio
2) evil overlords enforce new direction on studio
3) key members of studio leave
4) previously key members set up new studio, out of the clutches of evil overlords
And everyone said they joined DC studios 🙄
@sanderson72 5) Creator either doesn’t make anything new for over a decade (Kevin Levine) or puts out a middling self indulgent game that is pretty boring and just an excuse to work with Hollywood actors (Hideo Kojima and Glen Schofield), making gamers realize that maybe corporate oversight isn’t such a bad thing.
Going the Kevin Levine and Glen Schofield way?
@sanderson72 This is a good thing, it means big tech can't own all the big games.
@themightyant
So what are the examples of these "big games" not owned by "big tech"?
@trev666 Arkham Asylum was developed with a team of 40-60 people (starting with 40, ending with 60). That's a pretty perfect size for a team tbh, sometimes having more people only slows down decision making and causes clashing visions between team members.
Besides, I'm tired of seeing only open world games. Having quality games with smaller scale would be a nice change of pace.
@sanderson72 Lol they are not evil. They just want to make more money per game. It makes sense because literally no matter what you do not everyone would be happy.
@ZhuckelDror Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Genshin Impact, but also big indies like Hades, Hollow Knight, Stardew Valley and hundreds more
@themightyant Baldurs Gate 3 is a licensed game based off of Dungeons and Dragons (Baldurs Gate is literally one of the most famous locations in all of D&D) that are owned by Wizards of the Coast who in turn are owned by Hasbro, one of the largest toy manufacturers in the world. Cyberpunk 2077 is also another licensed game based on the ttrpg Cyberpunk 2020 which is owned by R. Talsorian Games, one of the largest tabletop game manufacturers in the world. Gen shin Impact may look to be a indie game but it’s developer has solely published exclusively in China before hand due to the country’s weird laws on foreign games and the developer is worth $7billion. All three are owned by big companies.
@PloverNutter some are big companies Yes, but they aren’t Big Tech which is what I said. The point I was trying to make, perhaps unclearly, is that the platform holders like Sony, Microsoft etc or publishers like Warner Bros can’t just buy all the studios and have it their own way.
Of course giant games require giant funding which has to come from somewhere.
But for a lot of these creatives the plan is to build a company and sell it to a bigger company, make a large profit and then start again. The spirit of start-ups lives on
With just 100 staff, they will be unlikely to be making AAA games, or if they do, you can expect very extended waits for games to release.
Good luck to them. Probably a good outcome as Rocksteady looks to be in a lot of trouble if Suicide Squad flops.
Great news but this doesn't always work out as well as you'd hope. Look at Callisto Protocol. Still hoping they succeed and we get a Callisto sequel we can be happy with.
good. now they can poach roacksteady developers before the ship sinks.
They should make a 3rd person metroidvania. Returnal gameplay, no map, acquiring items and back tracking. Oh baby!
@themightyant
Arguably the only Big Tech company that is directly involved in the gaming industry is Microsoft.
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