Mike Morhaine is the co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, but today, he is the owner of a new studio called Dreamhaven, which was unveiled in 2020. The company has over 100 staff members and is soon preparing to announce its first game. However, no details have been released about that just yet. Instead, they have revealed that Dreamhaven will publish Lynked: Banner of the Spark, a game unveiled during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live ceremony.
The news of Dreamhaven publishing Lynked: Banner of the Spark came from Jason Schreier from Bloomberg. Lynked: Banner of the Spark is the debut game from the game studio FuzzyBot, a studio that was designed so that they could make something colorful and vibrant rather than the dark and gory games that they were used to making in previous studios.
Lynked: Banner of the Spark is considered to be fast-paced action with hack-and-slash combat, inspired by roguelites. You’ll be able to make yourself stronger once you have completed a run and successfully gathered tools and resources.
In addition to Lynked: Banner of the Spark, Dreamhaven will also be unveiling a new game next month, which is being developed by Secret Door, one of their internal studios. This studio is also headed by a Blizzard veteran named Chris Sigaty, who was known for being the Executive Producer of Starcraft II.
Mike Morhaine spoke to Bloomberg about Dreamhaven and the struggles they’ve had with having a functioning company, especially during COVID-19, which has led to ongoing financial issues. These issues meant that Secret Door’s upcoming title missed internal deadlines, hence why it’s only being announced now. Eric Dodds, also known as the Director for Hearthstone, resigned for personal reasons, meaning the ideas they had at the end of 2020 were now moot.
Sigaty did mention that Secret Door’s first game should be out next year; however, due to a small team developing the game and budgets becoming increasingly tight, it may cause delays and alterations to the timeline.
When asked about the future of Dreamhaven’s titles, Morhaime commented: “The size of these games probably are not going to be the size of a Blizzard game. But the quality bar we’re trying to hit is still there. We’re trying to still put out high-quality, published games that people can love and enjoy and share with their friends.”
In addition to helping publish games such as Lynked: Banner of the Spark and Secret Door’s project, they will also be helping market games from its second internal studio, Moonshot.
