Microsoft’s youngest first party studio, The Initiative, has been building up its team for a couple of years now, and notably, has recruited heavily from AAA studios from across the industry. Many developers who previously worked at Naughty Dog in particular have joined the team, and it seems the studio has continued its heavy recruitment drive over the last couple of months as well.
As reported by VGC, former Naughty Dog developers Hawar Doghramachi (senior graphics engineer), Lauren Manuel Garcia Carro (senior shader tech artist), Lee Davis (lead gameplay animator), and Sarah Swenson (environment artist) have joined The Initiative.
Meanwhile, Infinity Ward alums Jaime Molina (environment artist) and Jolyon Myers (principal world builder), and Blizzard’s Joseph Than (producer) and Stephen Clayburn (principal lead online services engineer) have also joined the team.
Victor Chavez from Amazon Game Studios (senior animator), former Epic Games freelancer Pasquale Scionti (senior environment/lighting artist), Nigel Loster from The Coalition (gameplay designer), QA firm owner Maxwell Morrison, and Giovanni Martinez of Insomniac Games (senior environment artist) have also been recruited by the studio.
Earlier this year, The Initiative also recruited former The Last of Us Part 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2 programmer Francisco Aisa García. We got the chance to sit down and have lengthy chat with him about the state of the industry and much more- you can dive into it through here.
Reports have suggested that The Initiative is working on a Perfect Dark revival– or at least game that takes elements from the classic Rare franchise.