The co-founder of ArenaNet, and founder of Undead Labs, Jeff Strain has announced the formation of Crop Circle Games, the second studio under Strain’s “Prytania Media” arm. Crop Circle Games is being supported by a $25million investment from Transcend Fund, and “other strategic partners”.
The studio will be headed up by a veteran team who has previously worked at Undead Labs on State of Decay such as Jessica Brunelle, Doug Williams (Creative Director), Ocala Scott-Bellows (Art Director), and Nick Mhley (Design Director).
Jeff Strain's new studio, Crop Circle Games
The team will also include other well known developers like Braeden Shosa as Tech Director (previously at Epic Games), and Josh Scherr as Narrative Director, who has previously worked at Naughty Dog on the Uncharted series. The newly assembled Crop Circle Games says it has a “proven track record for building emotionally engaging narrative-driven sandbox games around the pillars of hope, humour, and human empowerment”, but of course, as the studio has just been announced, we don’t know what games will be coming in the future.
“In a dispiriting political, economic, and environmental time of history, what a pleasure to be part of a team creating a joyful, productive zone of creativity, positivity, and innovation,” says Strain. “It’s a genuine delight to be using my decades of successfully managing the business behind making games so that developers can focus on the creation of games.”
“Trends come and go in this industry but balancing the non-flashy fundamentals of both game development and managing a business are how you build studios for the long run. I’m really excited to support this world-class team to bring this intriguing and somewhat unconventional title to players”.</b>
Prytania Media was founded by Jeff and Annie Strain in 2021, and is an independent game development label which the team says is “focused on the curation of groundbreaking new game IP”. The other studio is called Possibility Space, and has the likes of former games media journalist Austin Walker as IP Director, and Liz England, who has worked on such titles as Resistance 3, and Sunset Overdrive.
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