New Microsoft studio, The Initiative, acquires senior talent from Santa Monica Studio, Rockstar and Crystal Dynamics

From Eurogamer -

The head of Microsoft's new studio, The Initiative, has taken on a wealth of new talent from a number of high profile studios, including Sony-exclusive Santa Monica Studio, Rockstar and Crystal Dynamics.

Studio head Darrell Gallagher originally made the announcement on LinkedIn, but has since deleted the post. However, ResetEra's CrimsonEclipse was able to take a screenshot before the post was removed.

New additions to the team include God of War (2018)'s lead producer Brian Westergaard, Rockstar's Christian Cantamessa, Daniel Neuburger from Crystal Dynamics, and Microsoft's own senior director of portfolio planning, Blake Fischer.

Annie Lohr - an experienced recruiter who's worked at Riot, Respawn, and EA - also joins the team along with ex-Crystal Dynamic's Lindsey McQueeney, who will be The Initiative's new HR & Culture Manager.

It's unclear why the post was deleted, but many of the new appointees have shared their new positions on their own LinkedIn profiles (Westergaard, Neuburger, Lohr, McQueeney).

Interestingly, while the updated online resumes confirms the appointments, neither Westergaard nor Neuburger elaborate on what their respective new roles are.

Christian Cantamessa, however, confirms the position of narrative consultant, having previously worked as lead designer and writer on Red Dead Redemption.

These new appointees do not include the talent Microsoft secured when it acquired Forza Horizon developer Playground Games, Hellblade developer Ninja Theory, State of Decay developer Undead Labs and We Happy Few developer Compulsion Games.'

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-08-12-new-microsoft-studio-the-initiative-acquires-senior-talent-from-santa-monica-studio-rockstar-and-crystal-dynamics

Next gen shaping up to be a good one, shame this gen was poor in comparison.

Oh no that Brian Westergaard guy is now a traitor lol.

They'll soon purchase Platinum games if they keep acquiring / opening up studios.

The initiative...... I'm guessing a buffy the vampire slayer game to be the first game in development.

That's cool if you like the studios Santa Monica, Rockstar and Crystal Dynamics. I personally don't.

See what you all done by the nonstop bashing of MS/Xbox?

You've Created a Monster to go along with the MonsterBox. :P

So is ms and sony just taking turns of who has the best console?

I'm really interested to see what type of games Microsoft's first party will come out with next gen, hopefully games that will knock Sony off their ass.

It’s sad that it took a whole generation to finally get a team that can make a good Movie Game for MS that will be on their the next generation console ?

So when can we expect the first God of theft raider game from this team?

Oh no now Dad of war director is great. lol

Is gow a good game to you guys now?

Now let’s hurry up and play the waiting game for the next 1-2 years before learning what kind of game they’re making.

I’m somewhat curious to know what kind of cushion/equity ground-floor guys are getting. Also, The Initiative deserves a better name (RIP Black Tusk).

The best part of all of this...

Good stuff. lol :P

Awesome stuff going on. I’m really looking forward to seeing what these guys create.

lol, Id play that :P

? Same thing I’m wondering. With the amount of time lems spend bashing that game you’d think they would be allergic to anything related to it. What a bunch of jealous crybabies.

This thread makes it clear that they don’t hate GOW rather they just hate the idea its not on their FlopBone. It’s Hellblade all over again. Bashing Ninja Theory for making another mediocre ”movie game” when it’s not on the Flopbone and then hyping them to the moon as soon as MS acquired them and the game comes to the FlopBone. What a sad bunch of clowns.

Yeah. because you Sony fans are so above anything like that.

Good for them.

Oh really? Tell me the last time cows made a thread gushing that Sony acquired some “MS talent”. I’m waiting. ? Does MS even have any gaming talent to acquire?

They do now.

Thanks for admitting you’ve got nothing ?

I'm honestly wondering why God of War (2018)'s lead producer Brian Westergaard would go to the competition after the great success God of War just had and a sequel incoming...

Wow, what a comeback. This is why i'm a cow, cause all you lems suck and it's embarrassing when you have no good comebacks.

Here is a hint, GTS got a sound guy from Forza. There is a thread in SW even. But the butthurt is so huge now you can't even bother to look up stuff and just resort to petty user insults and smart ass comebacks.

I wonder what IP MS will assign them to. 343 is a Halo factory. Coalition is a Gears factory. Playground is a Forza/Fable factory. Turn 10 is a Forza factory. Maybe Blinx perhaps? Or Ryse?

I did have a good come back but I threw it in the trash over the weekend.

I rest my case.

Im pretty sure Cows gushed over Corrine Yu, the programmer who worked on Halo 4's lighting, leaving 343 for NaughtyDog to work on Uncharted 4 a few years back.

So theres that.

It's an interesting appointment but getting the quality of the uncharted series will take a lot more than just nabbing old naughty dog Devs.

i'm guessing due to a magical thing called money

Isn't this rotation of people on the gaming industry kind of normal?

@zappat: well yeah but what im wondering is why he would abandon the opportunity to work on a game that's already a critical success and has a few sequels planned to go work for the competition that has such a bad rep. or why sony would let him go in the first place.... unless he really wants to be part of the dev. that might end up being the revival of MS i don't see any potential gain, just a lot of investment right now.

First he's not a director. Second, cows did that already, they hated Tomb Raider reboot by calling it an Uncharted ripoff yet were hyping GoW when the same director Cory Barlog came back.

Ha! Narrative consultant. He's not going to be their writer just someone giving advices.

Worst comeback of the year go's to.....Ant_17

Maybe these guys can stop the flops, going to be busy needing to improve all MS franchises.

Actually it was lemming who first call Uncharted dude raider last gen,Tomb Raider predates Uncharted,the gameplay in Tomb Raider wasn't as action based as Uncharted is,i know i have played many which is why people claim Tomb Raider went after Uncharted feel.

But yeah after all the Dad of war crap and cries about been movie now that person is great because it is moving to MS..lol

You mean we made MS put up more of an effort? Oh noes! More than what their fans have been doing all gen. Mollycoddling them as they put out useless features and defending them as the exclusives dried up. MS literally stopped listening to you guys a while ago because you weren't getting them ahead.

Yeah! MS is about to make some Movie Games!! And I bet Movie games will be cool for Lems once it has Xbox logo on it!

Microsoft is paying a bunch of the industries best to NOT make games.

LOL

Microsoft: “If we can’t have good games, no one else can! Look at how we killed Rare!”

Not the point because those lemmings didn't like or hated Uncharted/Tomb Raider because a certain guy left or then worked for their favorite company.

And, I haven't seen a single person calling that GoW guy bad/great or whatever. I'm pretty sure no one even heard of the guy before. He's an executive not a developer.

If they are simply going to create Sonyish games then meh to the entire studio.

With the talent that they hire is pretty going to create a SP game.. AKA Movie Games!! LOL sounds good to me.. I actually like them!

Sounds promising.

Makes me wonder if they situated the studio there just to headhunt the local talent who might not be interested in a big relocation.

I am not interesting in more of the same.

Hey you never know.. They might be able to come out something totally awesome like Horizon Zero Dawn!

But it still will be more of the same. If they are investing this much, I hope they do something different.

So looks as though MS are interested in story based SP games.

MS is done playing around. Anyone still hating on MS is on them but next gen is going to be fire for all parties.