Former God of War and Star Wars devs team up to make new "single-player-focused action adventure"

Former Star Wars Jedi series director and God Of War developer Stig Asmussen has founded a new studio, Giant Skull, to work on "gameplay-driven, story immersed action-adventure games set in captivating worlds". Based in Los Angeles, Giant Skull are even now developing a new "AAA single-player-focused action adventure" that runs on Unreal Engine 5.

They've launched a website to celebrate, which currently consists of some Loki-esque conceptual teaser footage of dormant androids, excitably redacted CRT text, and imploding balls of VHS cassettes. It's a headache-inducing melange of signifiers that sort of suggests a development team who are harkening back to pre-internet media with boutique production values. There's a text box that lets you type in commands to unlock what I'm guessing will be a concept artwork of, like, a dude hefting a gun at some distant alien mountains. I've tried out a few commands myself, including "what is the Matrix", "can dogs look up" and "knock knock", but have so far unearthed no amazing development secrets. Let me know if you have more luck.

Joining Asmussen at Giant Skull are CTO Jonn Carr, who was previously Star Wars Jedi: Survivor technical director, art director Patrick Murphy, formerly art director on Fortnite and League Of Legends, and Lauren McLemore, who was Fortnite's lead producer. There's also design director Jeff Magers, who also worked on Jedi: Survivor and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, animation director Brian Campbell, who had the same job at Epic Games, and COO/CFO Anthony Scott, whose credits include Kuju, Unbroken Studios and Rocksteady Studios.

Asmussen has been talking about Giant Skull's launch to GamesIndustry.biz. Apparently, the idea for the new studio came to him while he was working on Jedi: Survivor. "I really enjoyed my time at Respawn, and the Jedi team is incredible," he said. "EA was a very supportive company. But this opportunity presented itself, and... there was this itch that as soon as I started thinking about it, I just couldn't shake.

"The early days of Respawn was really fun," Asmussen went on. "We were like a garage band. That was one of my favourite times of my career. Building a team was so much fun. The ability to bring great people together, build a studio from the ground up, defining what our pillars are, what our culture is... that seemed incredible exciting to me."

Regarding the studio's founding emphasis on single player games, Asmussen commented that "for us, it would be somewhat foolish to try and make something that we're not experienced with or really good at, but also, I've been grateful that I can work on the types of games I like to play."

Giant Skull might evolve away from single player over time, however. "We are single player-focused," Asmussen went on. "That being said, it is early days and we are always looking for opportunities to engage players in different ways. So if there was something that could make the experience better, and it's not going to pose a challenge to us in being able to execute... we are very open minded about that. But I make single player games. That is what excites me, and I want to continue doing that."

Asmussen also had a bit to say to GI about the studio's funding and budgeting plans, commenting that "AAA can sometimes mean AAA dollars, but a lot of that depends on how you ramp up your headcount, and how quickly the expectations are that you ship the game, and that can make the game more expensive if you've got a lot of people on a long timeline."

He added: "I don't think you need a couple of hundred people to make a AAA game. I don't know how big we're going to get, but, especially being able to call our own shots, I think we can make a very successful competitive game with 100 people."

Giant Skull are a blend of in-office and remote-working developers. In the GI piece, Asmussen offered a gentle defence of hybrid or fully remote working, citing his Respawn experiences. "Jedi: Survivor, pretty much that entire game, was built remote," he pointed out. "So it can be done. A lot of teams have done it. On Jedi: Fallen Order, we had our completion percentages on the milestones, and we had the same data on Survivor. There was a little bit of a dip, but you can account for that, and the fact that we have that experience is something that will guide us moving forward." It's apples to oranges, but still, somebody should let Rockstar know.