Now, as reported by Variety, as part of its continued efforts to expand its gaming presence, Disney Games is expanding its leadership team, which involves promotions as well as several new hires, with a number of industry veterans joining the company.

For starter, Disney Games lead Sean Shoptaw has been promoted to executive vice president, while Jay Ong, who has been head of Marvel Games for close to a decade, has been appointed the new lead of the global licensing business. Prior to his role at Marvel, he also had stints at Blizzard Entertainment, EA, and Xbox. Ong, in turn, is being replaced as Marvel Games head by Haluk Mentes, previously the head of portfolio strategy and business development.

Additionally, Blizzard Entertainment’s former chief development officer Ray Gresko is joining as VP of product and development, and will be working closely with Epic Games as part of the companies’ ongoing collaboration. At Blizzard, Gresko co-led the development of Overwatch and Diablo 3, and also played a crucial role in the early development of Hearthstone. He joins former Ubisoft Massive technical lead Bjorn Tornqvist, who joined Disney Games as VP of games technology last Fall. Ong, Gresko, and Tornqvist will all report directly to Shoptaw.

“Under the leadership of Sean and Jay, Disney’s games business is perfectly positioned to deliver world-class storytelling in this medium,” says Disney Consumer Products president Tasia Filippatos. “We’re grateful to every member of the Disney Games team who has contributed to our success, and who will help shape the future of this industry through genre-defining entertainment.”

Disney has a number of major upcoming licensed titles in the pipeline, including the likes of Star Wars Outlaws, Marvel’s Wolverine, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and more.

Disney Speedstorm kicked off its early access period back in April. The studio has revealed that it has learned quite a bit about development of the game throughout its early access period, and that the early access release was instrumental in shaping the game.

The early access version of Disney Speedstorm can only be played until its full release by those who buy one of the game’s Founder’s Pack bundles. These bundles, meant to support development of the game, offer several cosmetic content, as well as racer unlocks.

Disney Speedstorm was first unveiled back in September 2022 during the Disney and Marvel Showcase. The announcement was accompanied by a gameplay trailer showing off various Disney characters racing against each other in an arcade-style kart racer.