Mafia 3 developers Hangar 13 are working on an unannounced triple-A game for 2K, and they’ve added a new studio in Brighton, UK, to help with the project.
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The new UK office will be headed by Nick Baynes, who has 25 years of games industry experience and was formerly at Split/Second developer Black Rock Studio – which was also based in Brighton until it closed in 2011. Hangar 13’s current Vice President of Development Andy Wilson was also previously at Black Rock.
Baynes says, “the UK has some of the most talented game developers in the world and I couldn’t be more excited to work with Andy again to build a world class team in Brighton and help forge the future of Hangar 13.”
Haden Blackman, global studio head of Hangar 13, adds, “we’re incredibly excited to welcome Nick and the Brighton team into our growing Hangar 13 family. The new office allows us to tap into the rich game development talent pool throughout the United Kingdom and Europe and will lead to better, more diverse games that resonate with the widest possible audience.”
All four Hangar 13 studios are now working on an unannounced triple-A game for 2K, which may be a new IP and not Mafia 4, but in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz Andy Wilson suggests that the teams will be able to work on their own projects too. “We don’t want to take Brighton and immediately give them this huge scary challenge, but we expect, over time, that they’ll be incubating projects themselves. Hangar 13 has a strong culture of incubation of new ideas. At any one time we don’t just focus on one monolithic project. We’re branching out beyond that.”
This expansion comes despite the news in February that Hangar 13 was hit with major layoffs, which 2K called a “large proportion of Hangar 13’s staff.” At the time they suggested that the staff reductions were “in order to ensure that the studio’s resources are properly aligned with its long-term development plans”.
A new Bioshock is supposedly in development “next door” to Hangar 13, although at the moment the Mafia 3 developers do not seem to be working on that particular game.