Microsoft’s New Studio The Initiative Hires Former Rockstar Dev

At E3 2018, Microsoft announced that they’d added five new studios to their first party lineup. Two of them were notable because of how huge they were, those being Playground Games and Ninja Theory, but one of them, called The Initiative, was perhaps just as notable because it was a brand new studio that had been built from scratch, with Darrell Gallagher, former head of Crystal Dynamics, in charge.

The Initiative is gearing up for something significant, that much is obvious, and it seems they’ve been adding to their numbers as well. For instance, Tom Shepherd, who was the Technical Director at Rockstar San Diego for eleven years (from 2003 to 2014), has joined The Initiative. Shepherd’s LinkedIn profile states that he’s worked on games such as Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto V, Max Payne 3, and Midnight Club 3.

And it also looks like The Initiative are still looking to hire more people. Among others, they have job openings for the positions of Senior Gameplay Engineer, Lead Technical Designer, Lead Graphics Engineer, and Art Director.

Here’s hoping we get to hear about whatever it is they’re planning to work on soon. Maybe at X018 next month?