Microsoft Has Reportedly Formed A New Dev Team For AA Games

According to a recent report from Windows Central, Microsoft and Blizzard have formed a new development team in Blizzard Entertainment to focus on creating smaller AA titles based on existing IP such as WarCraft and StarCraft. The development team is reportedly made up of King (Candy Crush) developers. According to the report, “Microsoft and other big publishers are increasingly concerned about the monstrously ballooning costs facing AAA game development, and having studios cross-collaborate more closely is one way Microsoft is exploring reducing costs.” Given King’s mobile background it’s possible that these will be mobile games “aimed to support Xbox’s planned mobile gaming store for iOS and Android”.

The publisher’s latest title Diablo IV details via the publisher:

Diablo IV is the newest incarnation of Blizzard Entertainment’s genre-defining action–role-playing game series. Players will experience a grim new story line while also having the freedom to forge their own path across the most expansive vision yet of the world of Sanctuary—a bleak and shattered hellscape bereft of hope and beset by demons.

Key Features

Explore a vast, contiguous world of Sanctuary and seamlessly travel across five distinctive regions filled with dangerous foes.
Quintessential Diablo gameplay featuring robust RPG character progression, infinitely replayable dungeons, awesome loot, and the series’ hallmark visceral combat.
An open world inhabited by familiar threats and new—like deadly encounters with massive, multi-phase World Bosses.
Four iconic classes (with one more to come): the Druid, the Barbarian, the Sorceress, and the Rogue.
All-new technology that will push the Diablo franchise to dark new depths with higher fidelity graphics and the ability to create an expansive open world experience.
A dark new storyline where heroes will be called upon to face a challenge unlike any the world has seen before.

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