Amazon Games, the developer behind upcoming MMORPG New World, has opened a brand-new studio in Montreal, Canada. Focussing on “creating original triple-A games”, the studio is headed up by some of the former core team behind Ubisoft’s FPS game Rainbow Six Siege – and it’s got an online game based on a new IP in the pipeline.
In a blog post announcing Amazon Games Montreal – which joins the company’s existing roster of studios in Seattle, Orange County, and San Diego – Amazon says that the Canada-based team is founded by industry and Rainbow Six Siege veterans Xavier Marquis as creative director, Luc Bouchard as head of production, Alexandre Remy as head of product, and Romain Rimokh as content director.
While details on exactly what this studio will be cooking up first are thin on the ground for now, Amazon does say that its first project will be “an online multiplayer title based on new IP”. It also sounds like it’ll be very different from what the devs worked on previously, with Marquis explaining that, “building upon eight years of experience with Siege, we are excited to start with a blank page and the creative freedom to create a completely unique experience in the multiplayer space”.
The studio has started posting ads for other roles it’s looking to fill, so we might glean more of an idea about what this mystery title is from their descriptions soon. For now, though, it looks like we’ll have to wait and see what form this online multiplayer game will take and what the new IP will be.
Given Amazon’s unsuccessful first venture into the online multiplayer space with Crucible, which shut down in November 2020 after launching May the same year and then being rolled back into closed beta the month following, it’ll be intriguing to see what the studio’s approach this time around will look like. Unlike Crucible, however, which was developed by Relentless Studios and published by Amazon, this new game will be under the company’s game development umbrella, like New World, so we’ll likely see some big differences.
If you’re keen to read the announcement in full, you can do so at Amazon Games’ site here and check out its jobs site to see the new roles at that link, too.