The former Mass Effect writer and director, Mac Walters, has formed a new triple-A studio called Worlds Untold that will develop AAA games that will focus on narrative and world-building. Mac Walters has also worked as a production director on the upcoming Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. The newly founded Worlds Untold studio joins the vast portfolio of Chinese video game company NetEase Games.
Former Mass Effect and Dragon Age Lead Forms New AAA Studio
NetEase Games announced the new studio via a press release and revealed that Worlds Untold is based in Vancouver, Canada, and is fully remote. The new studio is led by Mac Walters, a long-time video game industry veteran with more than twenty years of experience in direction and writing.
Mac Walters was with BioWare for almost 19 years before he parted ways with the company earlier this year and started leading Worlds Untold. Walters was the lead writer for Mass Effect 2 and 3 and was the project director for the popular title Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.
He was also the production director of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, an upcoming RPG title that is still without a release window. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was announced in June 2022 and is not expected to be released earlier than at least April 2024.
NetEase Games announced that the studio was created by Walters and his team to develop “IPs with depth and possibility that can’t be contained in a single game, or even a single medium.” It also revealed that Worlds Untold is already working on its debut project, which is an action-adventure game set in the near future. Talking about Worlds Untold and its vision, CEO Mac Walters stated:
We’re creating incredible and meaningful stories that we believe are best told and experienced through play. We are starting by crafting worlds that we all dream of discovering and then will put the player in the leading role of the most unforgettable adventures.
The team at NetEase Games shares our vision and passion to utilize leading-edge technology to create the best possible new games. Their teams’ support and creative freedom affords us the opportunity to deliver on that vision.
Simon Zhu, president of global investments and partnerships at NetEase Games, also commented on the new studio and its aim with Worlds Untold. He stated:
NetEase Games believes in empowering creators to think outside the box and to help execute their vision as seamlessly as possible. Worlds Untold is building a team of highly experienced individuals to develop new worlds and action-adventure games for all and we are excited to see what Mac and the team produce.
The Dragon Age director is joined by several other industry veterans at Worlds Untold across the departments. This includes Sotaro Tojima, who has joined the studio as Audio Director and has more than twenty years of experience in video game audio on games like Metal Gear Solid and Halo.
Elizabeth Lehtonen, the Head of Production at Worlds Untold, has experience working on popular titles like Dragon Age, The Sims, and the Angry Birds franchise. Ramil Sunga has joined the studio as the Head of Art and has over two decades of creative experience in various concept art roles on titles like Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, and the entire Dragon Age game lineup.
Head of Technology, Ben Goldstein, also has almost twenty years in the video game industry and has been the lead on games like the Xbox One version of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and the PlayStation 4 version of For Honor. Goldstein has also been at Tesla and Cruise, working on their respective simulation platforms.
The newly found studio is also actively hiring for several roles as it looks to get people on board to work on its upcoming debut game. This is a good sign, especially because the video game industry has been suffering from layoffs and job cuts.
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