TennoCon 2022 had a slew of surprising announcements from Digital Extremes, such as the new game Soulframe and the partnership to publish Airship Syndicate’s next title.
Airship Syndicate, as you might already know, is an Austin-based studio founded by renowned comic book artist Joe Madureira. According to the developers, who appeared in a brief interview, this will be an online action RPG based on a new fantasy IP.
Steve Madureira (Lead Designer): It’s a third-person action game. New original characters, original world, never been seen before.
Ryan Stefanelli (President and Game Director): We never would have tried this type of game right away. That’s why we started with something like Battle Chasers. Then we dabbled in multiplayer with Darksiders Genesis, and now we’re going all in with this new game.
Joe Madureira (CEO): This is our biggest game yet. We’re building a much larger world than we ever have before. But for this, it’s really more of a world that you live in. Potentially every day for years to come.
Ryan Stefanelli: We’ve been fans of many genres over the years, and we’ve sort of worn those influences on our sleeve. One genre we never really thought that we could touch on is MMOs.
Joe Madureira: For us, like, we played a lot of games together online, so it’s fun to finally get to work on a game like this where we’re building a world that players can experience together.
Ryan Stefanelli: I don’t think we would have tackled this type of online game without a partner like DE, a group that knows how to do it.
Steve Madureira: This game is really character focused. The characters have personalities. They have relationships with each other.
Andrés Ortiz Suàrez (Lead Programmer): We want players to feel excited about all of the different characters that they’re going to have in their arsenal.
Billy Garretsen (Lead UX Designer): We’re mixing in a lot of modern sensibilities and modern technology into those fantasy definitions to create something brand new.
Brooke Griffith (Senior Programmer): What makes this game special is the sense of adventure and camaraderie.
Ryan Cullum (Level Designer): The secret locations.
Emily Christianson (Animator): It’s got an identity.
Michael Blackard (Producer): People are going to be so jazzed.
The game doesn’t even have a name yet, but Airship Syndicate is unveiling it later this year at The Game Awards 2022.
