Developing a new first-person shooter (FPS) requires the right talent, so EA decided to hire Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto for a new first-person games studio based in Seattle.
Lehto worked at Bungie from 1997-2012 and progressed from Graphic Designer to Art Director before becoming both Creative Director at the studio and a co-creator of Halo. He worked on five Halo games in total (Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach) as well as Myth: The Fallen Lords before leaving back in 2012. After that he was President and Creative Director at V1 Interactive developing Disintegration. V1 shut down back in March.
As Eurogamer reports, in a tweet yesterday, Lehto confirmed he was joining EA, and although he only refers to “first-person games,” his experience and reputation means EA almost certainly wants a new first-person shooter franchise (or several).
In the tweet he explained, “I’m very excited to announce that I’ve joined @EA as a Game Director, building a new studio in the Seattle area working on first-person games.” His use of the plural “games” suggests this could be multiple projects he is overseeing at the studio and therefore more than one FPS to look forward to. Lehto also confirmed in another tweet that the studio he’s working for is separate to the new EA studio started by Ex-Monolith vice president Kevin Stephens announced back in May.
New studios and new games take a long time to reach a point where they have anything to show publicly. With that in mind, I doubt we’ll hear anymore about the project(s) being developed for a year or two. FPS fans will rightly be excited to see what Lehto produces, and he’ll surely be feeling the pressure to deliver something special.
