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Microsoft’s The Initiative studio hires top talent from Bungie, Crystal Dynamics

Jon Silman
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The Initiative, a mysterious, self-described “AAAA” gaming studio announced at E3 2018, has yet to produce a single game. That hasn’t stopped it from continuing to gobble up top developer talent from all over the gaming world.

According to studio head Darrell Gallagher on LinkedIn, the studio recently hired 16 new people to the company. Those include hiring Remi Lacoste, the director of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Marvel’s Avengers, and Christine Thompson, the narrative lead writer for Destiny 2, to a lead writer position.

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Francisco Aisa García, a former programmer at Naughty Dog and Rockstar Games, was brought on as a senior gameplay engineer, and Richard Burns, a UI artist formerly of Playground Games, was hired as a UI/UX lead.

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These impressive hires are significant, especially for a studio that has yet to reveal a single upcoming title. The closest we’ve gotten to any news for the future of the studio comes from Xbox chief Phil Spencer himself, who said in a tweet that the studio was “challenging themselves to do new things (and old things) in new ways.” That was in January.

There have been other big-name hires as well in the two years since the studio was announced. In 2019, the studio hired Red Dead Redemption writer Christian Cantamessa and God of War franchise lead producer Brian Westergaard. The studio also hired Sunset Overdrive director Drew Murray and Tomb Raider reboot director Dan Neuburger.

“My focus is one of opportunity and trying to make something groundbreaking. I’ve been given the mandate and the freedom and the support to go do that,” Gallagher told Venturebeat in 2018. “We have all this hardware, all these tools, all the creativity. As a gamer, we have the opportunity to play games across every device in every place. For me, as a creator, it’s awesome to be given the opportunity by Phil Spencer and by Xbox to go build something.”

The website for The Initiative is a simple, pared-down affair, with lots of statements like: “Our mission is to create ambitious and innovative game experiences that our audience will love” and “We are a tight-knit team of experienced creators bound by the desire to push the art of video games forward.”

There’s also a prominent tab for “careers,” illustrating that while the studio isn’t ready to let us know what it’s working on just yet, it sure is hiring a lot of people to do it.

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https://twitter.com/XboxP3/status/1704233222752571842
At first, people didn't know where the leak came from, with the FTC quickly denying that it leaked these things. Ultimately, United States District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley revealed that Microsoft had done it to itself while trying to provide the court with a secure cloud link to relevant exhibits for the trial. The Verge went on to report that Phil Spencer also sent out a memo internally about the leaks today, echoing the statements in his tweet.
"Today, several documents submitted in the court proceedings related to our proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard were unintentionally disclosed. I know this is disappointing, even if many of the documents are well over a year old and our plans have evolved," Spencer's memo reads. "I also know we all take the confidentiality of our plans and our partners’ information very seriously. This leak obviously is not us living up to that expectation. We will learn from what happened and be better going forward. We all put incredible amounts of passion and energy into our work, and this is never how we want that hard work to be shared with the community. That said, there’s so much more to be excited about, and when we’re ready, we’ll share the real plans with our players. In closing, I appreciate all of the work that you pour into Team Xbox to surprise and delight our players."
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