Chinese gaming giant NetEase has announced a brand-new game studio team based in Austin, Texas that will create a AAA MMO with the codename Ghost.
Gaming veteran Greg Street is heading up the new studio, which is called Fantastic Pixel Castle. Ghost takes place in a “new fantasy universe,” and the work-in-progress art that you can see below is beautiful and striking. As for Street, he was a lead systems designer at Blizzard where he worked on World of Warcraft and was most recently an executive producer at Riot Games working on the League of Legends MMO.
The team surrounding Street is made up of people who have worked on games like Fortnite, Overwatch, Valorant, League of Legends, and Guild Wars 2.
Fantastic Pixel Castle is described as a “remote-first” studio and is now actively hiring. Street added that MMOs are known to be “one of the most challenging genres,” but he said Fantastic Pixel Castle is trying to set itself up for success with its working structure and talking openly with fans.
“We are a fully remote studio, allowing us to hire the best game developers, and we plan to stay small, so that we can iterate on our design quickly,” Street said. “We also want to show the game early and often to the community and make sure we are on the right track to incorporate constant feedback. This is possible because NetEase Games is a strategic partner that understands our vision, and gives us the creative autonomy, resources and support to be successful.”
GameSpot will bring you more news on Ghost and Fantastic Pixel Castle when details become available.
WoW remains the biggest MMO out there, and it’s been running since 2004. Another upcoming MMO in the works is the new Lord of the Rings MMO from Amazon, which will actually become the second Lord of the Rings MMO on the market.