The Initiative Recruits Former Naughty Dog, Rockstar Programmer

Microsoft’s youngest first party studio, The Initiative, has been in the news a lot over the last year or so, thanks mostly to their aggressive recruitment drive, which has seen the tap up top talent from various AAA studios across the industry. They have added yet another face to their ranks, with Francisco Aisa García joining the studio as Senior Gameplay Engineer (as spotted by @BethWilder26 on Twitter).

García’s LinkedIn profile boasts an impressive track record. Before recently joining The Initiative, he was a gameplay programmer at Naughty Dog for over a year, where he was involved with the development of the upcoming The Last of Us Part 2. Before that, he was at Rockstar Games for over five years. During his tenure there, he worked on both, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Whatever game The Initiative are working on remains shrouded in mystery for now. The studio said back in October 2019 that it was working on a “crazy ambitious” game, before Phil Spencer hinted that they were doing both new and old things. Speculation that they are working on a Perfect Dark revival has been rife, and recent reports have certainly fallen in line with that.

Microsoft are gearing up for a major event in July focused on Xbox Game Studios where they plan to share new updates and reveals on various first party games, so it’s possible we’ll be hearing something about The Initiative’s debut project soon. Stay tuned for all updates.

Xbox Game Studios : Francisco Aisa García "Gameplay Programmer" de TLOU2 et "AI/Gameplay Programmer" de RDR2 et GTA 5 rejoint The Initiative en tant que "Senior Gameplay Engineer. @XboxSquadFr https://t.co/sdCOT7fPAA pic.twitter.com/K9eCklTd7u

— Chester de Lisieux (@BethWilder26) May 12, 2020