Gavin Raeburn, Forza Horizon developer, Playground Games’ co-founder and former studio head, has recently revealed that he has created a new AAA game studio called Lighthouse Games, according to IGN. With this release, Raeburn and his team of developers also teased a new IP, though they gave no input on what that new IP will be.
Xboxachievements goes more in depth on the reasoning for Raeburn creating this new company, going in-depth about the new endeavors he stated:
“I’m delighted that 30 former colleagues and other industry heavyweights have chosen to join me at Lighthouse… With [Forza] Horizon, Playground and I created one of the most successful Xbox franchises of all time… We delivered significant commercial success year after year, to massive critical acclaim, following the success from my time at Codemasters leading Dirt, GRID and F1.”
It seems as though this new company is working with a strong core team that helped propel Forza Horizon into what it has become. According to Goodwood, back in 2021, the Forza series was the sixth highest grossing racing game of all time, selling a total of 16 million copies at the time the article was written. Many fans hope the success of this series will translate into whatever new IP will be released by Lighthouse studio in the future.
This history with racing games has led fans to speculate that the upcoming IP could be a new racing title, as the company has over eighteen years of experience honing their craft in that field. That being said however, Wccftech notes that Lighthouse studios wants to be up-to-date with video game development. This can be taken many ways potentially showing a deviation from their roots as racing game creators. This could also mean that they plan on being pioneers of the racing game genre through their extensive knowledge of that genre. All of this is unknown at the moment, but we do know that a new AAA game is in development from this brand new studio, with more details to come in the future.