Playground Games is one of the major acquisitions Microsoft has made in an attempt to beef up its first party, and the studio couldn’t be more excited about it. Playground Games has been working with Xbox and Microsoft for years now, stewarding the Forza Horizon franchise, which has become Microsoft’s best selling and most acclaimed series this generation.
With them officially coming under the wing of Microsoft Game Studios, they can become the best developers in the world, Gavin Raeburn, studio director at Playground Games, told MCV UK in an interview.
“Our goal until recently for the studio was to become the best independent developer in the world. But now that we’ve been acquired, we want to leverage the additional support of Microsoft to become best developer in the world. A lofty goal, but one I think we could only ever achieve as part of Microsoft,” Raeburn said.
As he says, this is a lofty goal- but these guys are talented, and given the right resources, time, and creative freedom, this is a scenario we could feasibly see playing out- not necessarily them being the best developers in the world, but among the top tier, anyway. I wish them all the best of luck in their journey to do so, at any rate.