Former Playground Games staff have left the studio and made their debut with Maverick Games, a new AAA development studio based in Leamington Spa.
Former creative director Mike Brown leads the studio where he is joined by other ex-Playground staff including executive producer Tom Butcher, chief technology officer Matt Craven, content director Gareth Harwood and audio director Fraser Strachan. Ben Penrose joins as art director, and Elly Marshall joins as UX/UI director.
“Our goal is for Maverick Games to be a studio people will love,” said Mike Brown in a press release. “For players, we’re already at work on an exciting ultra-high quality title, and for developers, we’re building a home where everyone is encouraged to take risks, be curious, be creative, be innovative, be themselves, and above all—be a Maverick.”
Maverick Games joins a stable of incredible game studios in Leamington Spa — both Playground Games and Sumo Digital are found here, as are Ubisoft Leamington, Kwalee, and Mediatonic.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Brown says the studio’s name comes from his time at Playground. “It’s a word that would come up in my performance appraisals,” Brown says to GI.biz “Not necessarily positively. But I thought there was a real positive to that, actually. And when I talk about pushing away on caution, encouraging people to be risk takers, to challenge assumptions and not just do something because we’ve always done it that way… that is maverick. And that is something we encourage all of our team to do. Don’t be boxed in by rules that might not even be real.”
