FoxNext Games continues its expansion with the launch of a new San Francisco game studio, Fogbank Entertainment.
The division of 21st Century Fox Holdings (itself being acquired by Disney) has been expanding rapidly in the game business, and this deal follows on a flurry of announcements, including the acquisition of Cold Iron Studios in San Jose, California and the unveiling of a new virtual reality game Crisis on the Planet of the Apes VR.
Fogbank is led by studio director Daniel Erickson and executive producer Nathan Germick. They have assembled a team of 20 game industry veterans, including leading art, writing, and creative talent to build narrative games, a genre that focuses on branching storylines and player agency.
The studio’s debut project will be an episodic narrative game, which will draw from story, character, and location elements based on acclaimed Fox intellectual property as well as original content. FoxNext isn’t fully describing it yet.
“FoxNext is committed to developing quality gaming experiences, and Fogbank is going to help us to develop an interactive storytelling platform that allows us to expand on Fox’s catalog of entertainment while also developing new, unique fiction,” said Aaron Loeb, president of Studios at FoxNext Games, in a statement. “Narrative and story-driven games continue to rank among the top grossing and most downloaded games across industry standards, and we’re assembling a team of people dedicating to furthering the form.”
Loeb will speak on the Hollywood and games 2.0 session at our upcoming GamesBeat Summit 2018 event in Berkeley, California.
The Fogbank team holds decades of experience developing and publishing top game franchises with deep narrative, including Star Wars: The Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and many more. Studio writing director Alex Freed will oversee narrative development, working alongside studio art director Ken Capelli and cinematic director Jake Hughes.
Germick has 13 years of experience in games, with a focus on free-to-play titles and research and development. He was the co-creator of Dragons of Atlantis, one of Kabam’s most successful titles with lifetime revenue of $120 million. Erickson spent 17 years at BioWare and EA, and he shipped titles such as Dragon Age: Origins, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Spirit Lords, and Star Wars: Uprising. Freed has 15 years of experience and work on games for BioWare, DICE, Kabam, WB, and many others.
Fogbank is looking to double its size to about 40 people.
