Bruce Straley, who previously co-directed Uncharted 2, Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us with Naughty Dog, has announced he is returning to games development and establishing a new studio titled Wildflower Interactive.
In a video posted to Straley’s Twitter page which was captioned, “It’s finally happened!! We’re doing a thing!!” he explained that he had some news to share. “In 2017 I left the industry not sure whether I wanted to make games anymore, but the longer I was away I kept thinking about this medium and everything yet to be done and everything I wanted to do still.”
Straley explained that he had an idea that “kept following” him and so he teamed up with some friends and began to prototype. “I realised I need to make this game, but if I’m going to make this game I need to build a team. If I build a team, I have to build a company. If we’re going to do that, then we have to do it the right way,” he said.
The ethos of the company is important to Straley, as he explained: “It has to be inclusive, equitable and collaborative, full of big-hearted people that want to grow both professionally and personally. The culture has to be as iterative as the way we make games.”
Straley went on to say he’s “stoked” to announce the formation of Wildflower Interactive, which has an “exciting partner” which supports the new company and “is going to help us reach the broadest audience possible.”
Wildflower Interactive is also hiring, and already includes developers credited on titles including The Last of Us, Call of Duty, Pathless, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Astroneer and Abzu. The studio is currently looking to add an audio designer, character modeler, gameplay designer and animator to its ranks amongst other roles. The studio also benefits from being a “100 per cent remote work environment,” with the studio promising to “maintain some sort of hybrid workspace” if that changes in the future.
Straley expressed that he is “super excited by the announcement” and what the team is building. While there are no further clues as to what Wildflower Interactive is currently working on, the website says that it is “making ‘small-ish’, creatively-charged, uniquely-stylized games.”
In other news, Twitch’s most popular female streamer, Pokimane, has announced that she is taking a break from streaming and discussed the importance of doing so.
