The Stockholm-based studio is already working on an original IP. Although the team was formed more than six months ago, it has just been officially announced…

Among the co-founders of Elemental Games are Linus and Viktor Blomberg, former co-founders of Avalanche Studios. The company is privately owned, and its mission is to create “high-quality open-world experiences from a creatively and financially independent position.” Experiences. Not games! They’re already working on a new original IP. (It could be a “not-Just Cause.” After all, Avalanche’s flagship is also open-world…)

The founding members (Linus Blomberg, Viktor Blomberg, Oskar Blomberg, Kristofer “Loffan” Labedzki, Robert Krupa, Martin Kritan’ Bergquist, Christian Nilsendahl, Emil ‘Humus’ Persson, Andreas Tillema, Tobias Ekholm) have previously held prominent positions at Avalanche Studios, DICE, Epic Games and Ubisoft. They have worked on games and projects such as Battlefield 1, Fortnite and Unreal Engine. They also have a film background (Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).

Here’s Linus Blomberg’s statement: “We will continue to evolve systemic gameplay and the open-world genre, using all the knowledge we gained from Just Cause, Mad Max, Rage 2, and other Avalanche games. Our years in the AAA games industry have been rewarding and given us much experience, but it has also been frustrating at times. Large companies are often constrained in their ability to break the mould due to investors’ focus on short-term financial goals. In that environment, it’s challenging to do explorative development and be innovative and advance the medium in areas such as gender stereotypes and romanticization of violence.

Our ambition is to bring together the best of AAA and Indie development by having a team with extensive blockbuster experience but driven by their passion for the craft and complete creative and financial independence. We’ve seen in the past how technology, art and design are often in conflict rather than elevating each other. So we are creating an environment where none of these disciplines dictates to the others. We use our experience and craftsmanship in a genuinely collaborative way to open up opportunities that we wouldn’t even have considered in isolation.

The team consists of developers who can push the boundaries in their fields, and we will take advantage of that to develop proprietary open-world technology. But we also don’t want to reinvent the wheel or spread ourselves too thin, so we work with external partners in areas that we don’t think we can add value to. More on this will be announced during GDC next week.”

Best of luck to them.

Source: Gematsu