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After working on Call of Duty, Dead Space, Bret Robbins has the great ambition to create his own triple-A title
Today, former creative director of Sledgehammer Games, Bret Robbins, has announced the creation of Ascendant Studios.
The San Rafael-based studio was opened a few months ago and is financially supported by Vista Equity Partners co-founder and president, Brian Sheth. With his support, the studio is already working on its first title under a leadership team of industry veterans with Robbins at the helm.
In his last role at Sledgehammer, Robbins has held creative director positions in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Advanced Warfare and WW2. Previously, he was creative director at EA on Dead Space, as well as lead designer in From Russia With Love and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. He also worked for six years at Crystal Dynamics on several titles.
Talk to GamesIndustry.bizRobbins pointed out that his goal with Ascending Studios was to create a game that could compete with triple-A franchises. "I want to make a big game," he said. "[One] it's up there with the best games ever made. "
This may seem like an ambitious goal for a beginner studio. At present, Ascendant Studios is small, but Robbins intends to develop the studio over the next year or more, with more than 100 employees in all necessary areas. It aims to recruit experienced talent and already has a management team of veterans of the sector with credits for games such as Telltale's Call of Duty, The Walking Dead and Dead Space.
Robbins said he planned to draw a lot of lessons from his work on Dead Space – the "last totally original game" on which he had worked. After hiring, he stated that the biggest obstacle to achieving the ambitious Ascendant project was to establish good communication.
"You just have to be rigorous enough to review and analyze work and communication," he said. "Really being able to communicate well a vision to the team is extremely important.One of the most difficult things to do, especially when you start something new, is to keep everyone aligned on a particular idea or vision, many practices in place to evangelize this vision, make it clear to everyone, so that everyone knows what we are working on, knows the purpose and understands how to achieve it.
"You really have to rely on the people you hire, it's important that you listen to them all the time, they will have answers that I will not have because they are experts in their field."
Despite the challenge, Robbins has confidence in his own experience and that of his management team.
"The games have become better and better, and reach the bar of quality that the best games in the world are not easy," he said. "But I've already been there, I understand the process, I understand what's needed, so I'm pretty confident about it."
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