Experienced veterans from EA's Respawn studio have formed a new AAA team called Giant Skull
The developer is led by Stig Asmussen, who is best known as the game director for 2019's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and 2023's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Giant Skull has an office in LA, although employs people from around the world
The leadership team also includes Star Wars: Jedi Survivor alumni Jon Carr (CTO) and Jeff Magers (design director), Fortnite veterans Patrick Murphy (art director), Lauren McLemore (lead producer) and Brian Campbell (animation director). Meanwhile, Unbroken Studio's Anthony Scott takes the roles of COO and CFO
The press release announcing Giant Skull describes the projects it's building as a 'gameplay-driven, story-immersed action-adventure games'. And fans of Asmussen's previous work, which also includes the first three God of War games, will have an idea of what to expect
"For us, it would be somewhat foolish to try and make something that we're not experienced with or really good at," he explains. "But also, I've been grateful that I can work on the types of games I like to play"
He adds: "We don't want to try and do something we're not comfortable with. We are single player-focused. That being said, it is early days and we are always looking for opportunities to engage players in different ways. So if there was something that could make the experience better, and it's not going to pose a challenge to us in being able to execute… we are very open minded about that. But I make single player games. That is what excites me, and I want to continue doing that"
"AAA can sometimes mean AAA dollars," he says. "But a lot of that depends on how you ramp up your headcount, and how quickly the expectations are that you ship the game. And that can make the game more expensive if you've got a lot of people on a long timeline
"I don't think you need a couple of hundred people to make a AAA game. I don't know how big we're going to get, but, especially being able to call our own shots, I think we can make a very successful competitive game with 100 people"
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