Dragon Age, Assassin's Creed, And Watch Dogs Veterans Open New Studio

With creative talent from BioWare, Ubisoft, and EA behind it, Yellow Brick Games is a new game development studio opening in Quebec, Canada with the vision of returning "back-to-basics" for next-generation hardware.

The studio features recognizable industry names, including Thomas Giroux (Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs), Jeff Skalski (Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed) and Frédéric St-Laurent B. (Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed) who bring their years of expertise to the new team. Perhaps most notable is the inclusion of Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw, who left Ubisoft after a long tenure working on the RPG series at BioWare. Laidlaw will act as the studio's chief creative officer, guiding the team's first development endeavor.

The studio is currently hiring and only features 15 employees today, which means it might be some time before you start seeing anything about its first project. Laidlaw explained that the aim of the studio was to return to smaller, agile teams that can afford every developer to have a voice in the product being created.

"For veterans of big-studio productions like myself and much of our team, this is the perfect time to get back to a small, agile, and highly motivated group," Laidlaw said. "We want our games here at Yellow Brick to take potentially millions of players on wonderous journeys, and we want every member of our team to have a direct impact on the new worlds we're creating."

Mike Laidlaw spent 14 years with BioWare, working as the lead designer and series creative director for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. He also worked on Mass Effect and Jade Empire. After leaving BioWare, Laidlaw joined Ubisoft Quebec and remained there for just over a year. He left the studio earlier in 2020.