Dragon Age creator Mike Laidlaw, who left Ubisoft Quebec earlier this year after a brief stint at the studio, has been hard at work on some other things these last few months alongside Ubisoft veterans Frederic St-Laurent B., Jeff Skalski, and Thomas Giroux, which have now been revealed. The four of them have established a new independent development studio, Yellow Brick Games, based in Quebec City.
The developer’s official website puts an emphasis on developing “innovative gameplay and original IPs”, while also putting plenty of focus on wanting to maintain a healthy work/life balance- which, given all the reports we hear about excessive crunch in the industry, is a breath of fresh air. “We believe fulfilled team members deliver the best content.,” the website reads.
The studio wants to create games with “beautiful worlds that challenge the mind and inspire the imagination”, and also wants these worlds to be emergent and “simulated with rich systems that create memorable interactions”. The third of their core pillars says that their games should be as fun to watch as they should be to play.
There’s no word yet on when we can expect to hear about Yellow Brick Games’ first project (it’ll likely be a while, since they’re just setting things up right now), but it’s probably going to be worth keeping an eye on. Stay tuned for more updates.
