Maverick Games, a studio founded byForza Horizon 5director Mike Brown, has secured a publishing deal with Amazon Games for its debut game, an untitled “narrative-led, open-world driving game.”
Maverick Games currently has over 60 employees and is actively staffing up for this project. Brown holds the dual role of studio head and creative director and is particularly excited about the narrative potential of the racing genre.
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“There’s nothing about this genre that prevents it from having amazing characters and amazing stories, it’s just not really been explored yet,” Brown explained inan ‘interview’ with publisher Amazon.
“I’ve been making racing games for nearly 20 years, and I know this community really well,” said Brown. “I think there are a lot of fantasies, desires, and motivations that this community has that we have a unique opportunity to deliver on.”
Jamie Brittain, co-creator of the British teen drama Skins, will be lead writer on the project. Brown believes the “cult-like” success of Skins is because of Brittain’s ability to write “flawed” and “a little bit weird” characters that “resonate so well with people.”
The leadership team at Maverick features several ex-Playground Games developers, including executive producer Tom Butcher, chief technical officer Matt Craven, content director Gareth Harwood, audio director Fraser Strachan, art director Ben Penrose and visual design director Elly Marshall.
Forza Horizon is a series that has consistently done very well critically, with the last three entries holding a score of over 90 on review aggregator Metacritic. Forza Horizon 5, directed by Brown,holds a score of 92.
Brown and his team departed Playground Games in 2022. Another prominent figure at the studio, co-founder Gavin Raeburn, also left Playground in 2022 to found his studio, Lighthouse Games. Playground, an Xbox-owned studio, is currently working on the Fable reboot.
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