SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 21 ― Video game designer Kim Swift of boundary-pushing puzzler Portal plus action thriller Left 4 Dead and its sequel has joined EA Motive, which has not one but two Star Wars games on the go, involving three of the industry’s best-known women.
Swift’s involvement in student project Narbacular Drop saw her join game developer Valve, along with her classmates on the project, to turn the prototype into what became sci-fi puzzler Portal.
Hugely well received for its innovation and polish, Swift both oversaw development of Portal and was involved in its design.
She had a hand in the creation of Half-Life 2: Episode One and its sequel, as well as the first two Left 4 Dead games before leaving Valve to work elsewhere.
Most recently she was at Amazon Game Studios, where she’d been one of its first headline hires ― its debut, the team-oriented Breakaway, was unveiled late 2016 ― and arrives at EA Motive, another freshly minted studio with great potential.
Already in place at the Montreal development house is Jade Raymond, best known as a producer on the first Assassin’s Creed games, and later involved with Watch Dogs and Splinter Cell: Blacklist, two other significant Ubisoft properties.
Raymond had left Ubisoft Toronto, which she had been leading, to found Electronic Arts’ Motive Studios in 2015.
“I’ve admired [Kim Swift]’s work forever!” she said on Twitter following the announcement, “I’m so excited to work with her.”
There, two Star Wars projects are ongoing.
The first is a sequel to 2015’s Star Wars Battlefront.
Leveraging the experience of Sweden’s EA DICE, the studio behind a blockbusting Battlefield franchise, Star Wars Battlefront was released in the run-up to billion-grossing film Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Similarly, its sequel is expected late 2017 as Star Wars Episode VIII approaches.
A second partnership involves Californian team Visceral Games, which is best known for chilling sci-fi Dead Space; it tried its own hand at a Battlefield game with 2015 spin-off Battlefield Hardline.
There resides one of the industry’s leading creatives, Amy Hennig, first acclaimed for her direction of three Legacy of Kain games in the late 90s and early 2000s, then for the first three Uncharted action adventures.
Visceral’s Star Wars game is expected, though not yet confirmed, for 2018.
Given the schedule in place for Battlefront’s sequel it’s unlikely that Swift has been brought in to steer it; Visceral’s untitled Star Wars game already has a creative director though that wouldn’t prevent Swift from contributing as with Left 4 Dead and the Half-ife” episodes, so it seems reasonable to assume Swift is piloting her own team for an unannounced project at her new Montreal home. ― AFP-Relaxnews
