When the Studio Head of Game Studio The Initiative announced that developers like Brian Westergaard, Annie Lohr, Blake Fischer, Drew Murray (Insomniac), Christian Cantamessa (Red Dead Redemption designer), Tom Shephard (GTA V developer), and Lindsey McQueeney were joining their ranks, we could only think of one fact: a great game will come to Xbox sooner or later.
Last year, Microsoft founded The Initiative to build quality games that will be exclusive – think of Uncharted and God of War. Now looking at the lineup above, these developers have the resources to make it possible, considering they worked on triple-A games before.
Robert Ryan Joins The Initiative Team
Now another leader has been added to The Initiative, and it’s none other than Robert Ryan, former Naughty Dog, and The Motive Game Designer.
The news surfaced thanks to a post by Twitter user “Klobrille,” who wrote:
Another great talent for XGS. Former Naughty Dog and The Motive Game Designer Robert Ryan joined The Initiative as a Senior Systems Designer.
He added a screenshot of Ryan’s LinkedIn profile which shows that he is now the Senior Systems Designer at The Initiative.
Why is everyone hyped about Robert Ryan joining Microsoft’s first-party game studio? Well, he was behind games like The Last of Us: Part II, Uncharted 4, Uncharted 3, and The Last of Us.
It seems that The Initiative is looking for experienced people and we really hope to see what they’ve been working on so far. Maybe we will see some of it at E3 2019, although it would be a little too soon.
Nonetheless, Gallagher recently added that The Initiative would experiment with different games, so they’re “staying small” and “staying agile.”
One thing is true: The Initiative has a team that could easily compete with Rockstar Games or other devs like CD Projekt Red. Whatever The Initiative team is working on, we expect to see it in the next few years, and it better be breathtaking!
