Forza Horizon director leaves to form own studio ‘Maverick Games’

The Forza Horizon series has managed over the course of a few years to become one of the premiere franchises for Microsoft and Xbox. Developed by Playground Games, the studio is currently tasked with working on the latest Fable game. In the wake of this, Forza Horizon’s Creative Director – and 9 others – have departed the studio to form ‘Maverick Games’.

As reported by Gamesindustry.biz, Maverick Games is a new AAA studio formed by ex-Playground Games devs, including the franchise’s Creative Director Mike Brown, with 9 others also leaving to join Maverick Games.

Though the studio currently only comprises of 10 members, Brown and co. have big ambitions, with plans to create an open-world premium AAA game for consoles and PC. Of course, this would be impossible with just 10 people, and so Brown has plans to expand Maverick Games to include 140 developers in total.

Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz on this new venture, Brown said “[In 2021] we shipped Forza Horizon 5, which was a thrill to work on. As much as I had an amazing journey at Playground, I was asking myself, what's next? Do I stick with this fun, good job? Or do I look for other opportunities? This opportunity came up. I was asked what my vision would be for a new studio… and it was lucky I had an idea in mind.”

Speaking on the approach to this new studio, Brown claimed “Games are made in a very certain way that brings with it real security. We know that if we do these things in a row, we will hit this date and the game will come out. I think there are other ways where you can still hit that date, but also do a load of new things on the way. It is a truism that you can be creative, or you can be cautious, but you can't be both. You either decide to mitigate risks, which limits creativity, or you embrace risks, which releases creativity. We are going to build a team where we really encourage them to take creative risks, to try new things, and really celebrates that as part of our culture.”

Maverick Games is certainly coming right out the gate swinging. Hopefully their ambitions are able to be achieved. The full interview can be found HERE.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of this latest move? What do you want to see the team work on? How long do you think we will have to wait to get our first look at this upcoming title? Let us know down below.

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