The great minds of Justin Richmond, former Naughty Dog employee and director of Uncharted 3, Aaron Ehasz, former writer for Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Justin Santistevan, former head of finance for research and development, have all departed from Riot Games to create Wonderstorm, the game/television studio. With this newfound studio and collaboration, the three hope to create a universe that will be featured in a Netflix series, with the universe being expanded upon with video games developed by the studio.
When asked about the departure from Riot to create a new studio, Richmond says that he and the team “both really wanted to go and make a thing where we could really control it 100 percent and deliver on that promise of trying to make something magical. So if we’re going to mess it up, it’d be entirely our fault.” With a studio headed by talented individuals, Wonderstorm hopes to avoid a messy narrative that would ultimately hurt the production, similar to the likes of Quantum Break, a project that tried to have an episodic TV series tie in with a video game.
Aaron Ehasz also joins the fray, and will help provide insight for their upcoming Netflix series. Having worked on another show, Futurama, Ehasz notes of the magic behind both Avatar and Futurama, and Richmond, noting the adoration that Uncharted garnered while it was under his belt. The team hopes to spark the same kind of magic surrounding these worlds for their creations, and they note how difficult a task it is without putting in effort to make something authentic for fans to latch on to.
Also on deck are other former employees of Naughty Dog, Riot Games, and Nickelodeon that will be around to help develop future projects for Wonderstorm. In addition, one of the directors for Avatar: The Last Airbender will be aiding the company.
In the end, both Richmond and Ehasz hope to combine their prowess to help create new worlds that will not only entertain players, but encourage people to go out and create their own worlds as well.