With Blizzard having shed a lot of key talent in recent years due to layoffs and other leavings at the company, a lot of major players have moved into either other major studios, or formed studios of their own. We’ve seen a couple major groups spring up already, but another was just formed from former veterans of Blizzard Entertainment, Epic Games, and more. Lightforge Games has opened its doors as a new studio set to specialize in RPGs and has apparently started on a cross-platform “social videogame.”
Lightforge Games officially came into being just recently, having announced its opening late last week with a new website. The company’s key staff features veteran devs including UI director Matt Schembari from Epic, project manager and producer Nathan Fairbanks from Epic and ZeniMax, former Blizzard content and game designer Bridget Collins, former Blizzard art director Glenn Rane, and former Blizzard and Epic brand manager and marketing director Marc Hutcheson, just to name
by WRAL TechWire May 12, 2021 .
RALEIGH – Video game startup Lightforge Games, armed with $5 million raised in equity financing from 10 investors in December, and equipped with team of game developers, seeks to change how role-playing games (RPGs) are played.
The team, led by CEO Matt Schembari, who is the former director of user interface for Epic Games, is working on what it called in a statement “a new cross-platform social video game where players have the power to create worlds.”
The company was co-founded by gaming industry veterans Schembari, Dan Hertzka, Nathan Fairbanks, Glenn Rane, and Marc Hutcheson, and now includes six additional developers.
Former Epic and Blizzard Veterans Join Forces to Create Lightforge Games™
News provided by
Share this article
New Studio Seeks to Reimagine How RPGs are Played
RALEIGH, N.C., May 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ Longtime Epic Games and Blizzard Entertainment developers have united to create Lightforge Games, and they re on a quest to change how RPGs are played. The team is developing a new cross-platform, social video game where players have the power to create worlds and tell stories with unprecedented freedom. We all love highly social, creative games, and we particularly love games where players drive the narrative, CEO Matt Schembari said. We are looking to combine elements from Minecraft or Roblox with tabletop RPGs to form a new way to play roleplaying games. Given our backgrounds, making a game that looks to revolutionize RPGs was an obvious choice.
A group of former Epic Games and Blizzard Entertainment developers today announced the formation of their new studio, Lightforge Games.
The remote-working studio is working on a cross-platform game with social elements, with CEO Matt Schembari saying the intent is to combine elements from Minecraft or Roblox with tabletop RPGs to form a new way to play role-playing games.
The studio has received $5 million in backing from a number of investors, including Galaxy Interactive, NetEase Games, Dreamhaven, Maveron, and 1UP Ventures. Lightforge is creating a game in a new space that has a ton of potential, said Dreamhaven CEO and former Blizzard president Mike Morhaime. The team is full of veteran developers, and I m excited about their vision.