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New studio formed from veteran MMO talent
Video game development bears a certain similarity to rock music, insofar as a successful project usually leads to people breaking off and going in new directions. Of course, unlike the frequently unsuccessful solo careers in the music industry, breakaway studios can often reach new heights. Second Star Interactive is a new studio working as a division of Idea Fabrik, the company behind the HeroEngine being used by upcoming games such as Star Wars: The Old Republic. The team's goal? To release a new game using the engine by the end of 2011 It's a tall order, but there's a solid log of talent on the team -- Mythic Entertainment and Warhammer Online veterans such as Darrin Hyrup, Lori Hyrup, and Cooper Buckingham working alongside Ultima Online's Tim Cotten and Eric Piccione. While there are no details to be had on the game at this time, it's certainly being put together by a team with the experience to make it excellent. Time will tell what comes out of the studio, but we should be seeing something new by the end of the year.
EA, Bethesda, and Sony Online vets form Second Star Interactive
Hero's Journey may be no more than a distant memory at this point, but Simutronics' HeroEngine -- the game engine currently being employed by BioWare to create Star Wars: The Old Republic, among other things -- is still going strong. After being quietly scooped up by Idea Fabrik in 2010, the HeroEngine is now being used to create a game in-house at a newly formed studio, Second Star Interactive. Formed by ex-Bethesda, EA, and Sony Online Entertainment devs and execs, SSI intends on creating an online game of some form that will launch "later this year." The release also notes that "a number of third-party developers who have licensed HeroEngine also plan to launch games featuring the technology before the end of 2011," which is especially interesting as the two main development houses working with the engine are BioWare and ZeniMax Online (parent company of Bethesda Softworks and id Software). We know about BioWare's big game, but we've yet to hear anything about what ZeniMax Online has planned.
