Electronic Arts has opened a new office in the Seattle area with Marcus Lehto, former head of V1 interactive and co-founder of halo, as game director.
According to Lehto’s tweet, the new studio is producing a “first person game”. It is reported that Lehto will work under Vince zampella of EA, who is the head of respawn entertainment, a developer of apex legends.
Lehto served as the art director of Bungie studio from 1997 to 2012, where he helped design many roles and vehicles, which will become the mainstream of the series, including the protagonist’s chief master. Lehto’s initials and birthday can be found in various game models in Halo: Battle evolution in 2001.
Recently, Leto was the studio leader of V1 interactive in Redmond, Washington, which developed the 2020 tactical shooter decomposition. V1 interactive closed in March.
This is the second new office space opened in the Seattle area in 2021. In May this year, the company quietly hired Kevin Stephens and Samantha Ryan, former vice presidents of Jushi, as the heads of an unknown studio, and planned to develop an open world action adventure game. EA previously had a satellite office in Seattle, which was mainly responsible for meeting the needs of speed racing franchise before it closed in 2002.
Founded in 1982, electronic arts is probably best known for its acronym. At present, it is the second largest third-party developer in the modern video game industry, second only to Activision Blizzard, the publisher of call of duty. It has a number of successful franchises, including Sims, star wars, mass effect, dragon age, Titan falls, as well as Madden and FIFA sports simulators updated every year.
As Lehto mentioned in September, EA is a controversial figure in the modern game industry. In 2004, as anonymous_ Part of the spouse complaint, which was one of the first studios to receive complaints about “austerity culture”; It infamously bought an independent studio and put it into operation; It is one of the largest companies involved in the “robbery box” incident in 2019. However, it also produces and sells some of the world’s most popular games, and there are usually at least two best-selling games in the top ten in any year.
EA is headquartered in Redwood, California, with North American subsidiaries in Orlando, Vancouver, Baton Rouge, Los Angeles and Sacramento. It also owns PopCap, a casual game company founded in Seattle and acquired by EA in 2011. PopCap has offices in Seattle, Vancouver and Hyderabad, India.