Michael Condrey, who co-founded Call Of Duty crew Sledgehammer Games after being a giant cheese at EA’s Visceral Games on games together with Dead Space, has now joined 2K as president of a mysterious new studio. Continuing his tour of massive American publishers, 2K say Condrey “will build and lead a new development team to work on an unannounced project.” It is bizarre to see 2K opening a studio after shutting down so many in recent times, and that does make me doubt its long-term possibilities, however hey, we’ll see.
Condrey was senior growth director on sci-fi spooker Dead Space at Visceral Games, amongst different roles on different games, earlier than leaping ship to Activision. He co-founded Sledgehammer Games beneath Activision with fellow Dead Space fella Glen Schofield, and there he directed 2014’s Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare and 2017’s Call Of Duty: WWII. Condrey and Schofield left Sledgehammer in February 2018 for different roles at Activision, then each later left the corporate completely.
2K don’t say what Condrey will make at this new studio and even what it’s named, mentioning solely say that it’s someplace in Silicon Valley they usually’ll do… stuff.
“Condrey and his future team will have the creative freedom to develop the studio’s vision and long-term projects while having access to a global network of proven industry leaders and resources across 2K’s studios,” the corporate mentioned in today’s announcement.
I don’t want to sound cynical, however I don’t maintain a lot hope for a brand new 2K studio. Over the previous 4 years they’ve shut down Irrational Games (its skeleton crew becoming Ghost Story Games), 2K Australia, and 2K China, in addition to cutting 2K Czech down and rolling the remnants into Hangar 13. Rumour says that they’ve closed 2K Marin too however weirdly refuse to confess it, although the official line (as of 2014) is that they’re alive and will continue BioShock. It’s onerous to think about 2K giving this new crew a couple of, perhaps two possibilities to strike it huge. Silicon Valley will not be low cost and 2K have proven they’ll tear a studio aside after they don’t have any urgent want for it.
