Kellee Santiago Departs thatgamecompany

Kellee Santiago has left thatgamecompany. The former co-founder and co-president announced the news in an interview with Gamasutra. The website speculates that more departures might be on the way.

Santiago said:

After doing these three games, I think it was a really great opportunity for all of us to look at what we’ve learned and what I’ve taken from that experience, and go forth and take it into new arenas.

On top of that, founding a company whose explicit goal was to do new types of game development really allowed me to be able to try out new processes for game development, to try out new ideas.

So much of my work at thatgamecompany was really supporting [fellow co-founder Jenova Chen’s] visions for the types of games he wanted to make, and I felt like I have done everything I needed to do there, and that he’s in a great place now to go on and continue with some of the other people at thatgamecompany, to take that to a whole new height.

Following the release of Journey this month, it’s thought that thatgamecompany is preparing for work on its next project. It’s unclear at this stage who will publish the title, with the indie studio’s three-game relationship with Sony now complete. Chen indicated to us in an exclusive interview that thatgamecompany hopes to reach a “bigger audience” with its next project.

We wish Santiago all the best with all her future endeavours. Honestly, we doubt she’ll be short of new opportunities.