Hasbro has seen unprecedented success in gaming with Baldur’s Gate 3, so it’s no surprise that the company is planning on greatly expanding its presence in the AAA space. The company has already confirmed that it’s in discussion with multiple potential external partners for Baldur’s Gate 4 (with Larian Studios having confirmed it’s focusing on its own IP for its next projects), while Hasbro-owned Archetype Entertainment is also working on a new AAA sci-fi RPG in the form of Exodus. Beyond that, speaking in a recent interview with GamesIndustry, Dan Ayoub – who’s the head of digital product development at Hasbro-owned Wizards of the Coast – revealed new details on another major project in the works at the company.
Atomic Arcade, an internal Hasbro AAA studio based in North Carolina, is currently working on a G.I. Joe game that Ayoub says is “not your daddy’s G.I. Joe“, starring the character Snake Eyes. As per Ayoub, Hasbro is hoping the game will be a “shot in the arm to the G.I. Joe franchise.”
“With Snake Eyes, while it’s not a new IP, it’s hopefully going to be a shot in the arm to the G.I. Joe franchise and we can do some new things and express it in different ways in video games than we have traditionally,” he said.
Interestingly, Atomic Arcade is being led by former Rocksteady developers who worked on Batman: Arkham Asylum. In fact, Ayoub says that with its Snake Eyes game, the studio is attempting to do “something similar” for the G.I. Joe IP as what Arkham Asylum did for Batman.
“A common theme you’re going to see amongst all of these studios is leadership and teams that have kind of done something that we’re trying to do before,” said Ayoub.
Whether that means the game is going to be a similar type of experience to the 2009 title in terms of its gameplay and design approach is unclear- though a game focused on Snake Eyes as its protagonist would certainly lend itself well to a combat and stealth-centric experience.
How long it’ll be before Atomic Arcade’s Snake Eyes game is formally unveiled remains to be seen, but given the track record of the studio’s leadership, it’s safe to say that many are going to have their eyes on it.
