Krafton announces new video game studio in Montreal with fantasy title first up – Montreal | 24CA News

Patrik Methe has a narrative to inform. Now he has to construct a online game studio from scratch to do it.

Methe, who spent the final 17 years at Ubisoft Montreal, has been tasked with heading up the brand new Montreal studio for South Korean online game developer Krafton.

Krafton Montreal’s first sport will likely be drawn from the South Korean fantasy novel collection “The Bird That Drinks Tears” by Yeong-do Lee.

The collection affords an enormous canvas that tells the story of 4 races: people, Leckorn, Dokkaebis and Nagas.

“I like to call it some kind of a medieval fantastic universe — without elves, without goblins,” mentioned Methe. “Each race has their very own lore, their very own beliefs. And the story of the novel is about an unlikely group of various races put collectively to perform a process.

“No matter how different they are they will need to find a way to work together to achieve their goal.”

He says the fabric from the novels is so wealthy that it may possibly furnish a number of titles, saying “there’s a lot of meat around the bone.” And whereas the books have but to be translated into English, he says their world will ring a bell.

While it’s too early to foretell an actual launch date for the sport, the aim is a four-year manufacturing cycle. The first title will a single-player journey, though there may very well be different components.

Methe is aware of his stuff relating to fantasy. Prior to creating video video games, he owned a sport retailer and was immersed in tabletop role-playing video games, from “Dungeons and Dragons” to “Warhammer.”

“All these games, I’ve played them for thousands of hours,” he mentioned. “So now having this canvas, an unknown universe that we have the honour to bring to the players, it’s a dream come true.”

Montreal would be the lead studio on the sport, though there are already some 30 to 40 individuals in South Korea engaged on an artwork e-book drawn from the novel to make sure that no matter comes out of the collection has the identical imaginative and prescient.

Krafton, whose portfolio contains the smash battle royale title “PUBG: Battlegrounds,” has studios world wide.

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The new Montreal studio, which was formally introduced Wednesday, is Krafton’s first in Canada and third in North America, becoming a member of Striking Distance Studios in San Ramon, Calif., and Unknown Worlds in San Francisco.

Methe, who turned Krafton Montreal’s first worker in October, says the brand new studio will regularly ramp as much as 150 individuals over three years for the primary sport. He already has a employees of 12 together with fellow former Ubisoft workers in producer Benoit Frappier, sport director Frederic Duroc and expertise director Martin Paradis.

Methe is at the moment searching for workplace area, having visited a dozen locations already searching for a everlasting house.

No stranger to the town, Methe spent greater than 17 years at Ubisoft Montreal, engaged on the “Splinter Cell,” “Far Cry” and “Rainbow Six” franchises.

He says in making the transfer to move up the brand new studio he spent eight months discussing the undertaking with Krafton.

“The further we went into the discussions, the more excited I was about the adventure,” he mentioned. “But I had spent a bunch of years at Ubisoft so it was a tough decision.”

He was offered after a visit to Seoul to satisfy Krafton’s high administration, together with CEO Chang-han Kim, whose background is in sport growth.

The Krafton studio is simply the most recent to pop up within the Montreal gaming hotbed which is already house to Behaviour Interactive, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Eidos, Electronic Arts, Epic, Gameloft, Rovio, Square Enix, WB Games and 2K’s Cloud Chamber amongst others.

Montreal International, the town’s financial growth company, says the town ranks within the high 5 online game growth hubs on the earth with 200-plus studios and 19,000 employees within the business.

Ubisoft led the best way, establishing store in 1997.

“I think that 20 years ago there were a few successes and then slowly but surely people came knowing that the pool of talent available here is quite high,” mentioned Methe. “And now what’s very thrilling for the builders right here is that you’ve got an enormous array — you may have the large enormous studios, you may have the very small indie studios and every little thing in-between. So there’s one thing for everybody.

“That’s what makes the market very alive in Montreal.”

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