With the Game’s Developer Conference upon us, we are going to be getting quite a few announcements about some of the next trends, projects, and future plans from some of the key figures within the gaming industry right now. In an interesting development just before the start of the actual conference, a couple of notable developers made a big announcement.
Former Valve writer Chet Faliszek along with former Riot Games technical designer Kimberly Voll announced that they will be starting their own studio called Stray Bombay.
The announcement came by way of a blog post which explained a little bit about what type of games the studio will be putting its focus into. They stated that they want to create co-op multiplayer games that use artificial intelligence to effect the players overall experiences. Faliszeck also stated that he aims to “to create games that give players a place to breathe and live in the moment.” He further goes into details about his ambitions, stating the goal is to make “games that tell stories knowing you are going to come back again and again, that change each time you play them without feeling completely random, and that help you feel like a real team that supports each other … not a bunch of folks in each other’s way.”
Joining forces with Voll should help him to achieve just that. Faliszeck commented that Voll is “an expert in AI and human-centric design.” And from her prior experience in dealing with cognitive science, player dynamics, and artificial intelligence at Riot Games, it seems that she’s a perfect fix to make these kind of AI driven titles.
In regards to when we can hear about any other developments about when the new studio will begin working on projects, it’s going to be some time before we hear anything. The two said within the blog post that they will be “going to go dark for a little bit as we start laying the foundation of our new world.”