Playground Games Hires New Talent

Playground Games Hires New Talent for Open-World Action RPG

Playground Games has just hired GTA V, Metal Gear Solid and Hellblade developers. The new team will be working on a new open-world action RPG.

Playground Games is a AAA game development studio. Established in 2010 by some of the most experienced and talented developers in the UK industry, our mission is to make genre-defining video games for a global audience. We’re proud to be the creator and developer of the award-winning Forza Horizon series.

Playground Games Limited is a British video game developer located in Royal Leamington Spa, England, United Kingdom and a subsidiary of American technology company Microsoft since 2018. It is known for developing the Forza Horizon series, which is part of the larger Forza franchise.

“The new talent includes Rockstar North’s Will Kennedy, who has worked on both the single-player and multiplayer portions of Grand Theft Auto V, as well as Juan Fernandez di Simon, the senior designer behind Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. The developer has also managed to grab Star Wars: Battlefront II’s senior producer, Sean Eyestone, who is also a ten year veteran at Kojima Productions, working on games such as Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.

Moreover, Playground Games has also acquired an additional office space for developing the new RPG. Situated in Leamington Spa, the new studio will reportedly house more than 200 employees, effectively doubling the developer’s roster.

Regarding the new space, Playground Games CEO Gavin Raeburn said in a blog post that “We are delighted to have secured St Albans House which comes at an exciting time in our growth. The building fits our needs and compliments our existing office at Rossmore House also in Leamington Spa”.

At the 2012 Microsoft Showcase in California, Playground Games announced their first project, Forza Horizon. The title was developed in collaboration with Turn 10 Studios. The game was published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360, and released on 23 October 2012. In September 2014 the studio released Forza Horizon 2 on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One, to critical acclaim and Forza Horizon 3, on Xbox One and Windows 10, in September 2016. The third installment received an aggregated review score of 91 on Metacritic[6] making it the highest scoring exclusive game for the Xbox One.

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