The new team is working on a multiplayer experience
A new remote-first studio has been announced today, with goals set on both the games it wants to make and its own studio culture. Gardens is a studio aiming to create multiplayer games that foster meaningful moments, as well as growing a studio that’s transparent, sustainable, inclusive, and empowering.
Gardens’ co-founders are Chris Bell, Lexie Dostal, and Stephen Bell. Chris and Stephen both worked on What Remains of Edith Finch, the Annapurna Interactive-published narrative adventure. Chris’ credits also include Journey and Sky: Children of the Light. Stephen has been working on Blaseball. Dostal, meanwhile, was a co-creator of Dustforce.
Other developers on the team have worked on Spider-Man, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the Fallout series, Ratchet & Clank, and The Hobbit. Gardens is a remote-first studio, though it is based primarily out of Portland and Los Angeles.
“With Gardens, we wanted to create a studio that cares as much about the health, happiness, and wellbeing of its team members as we do the craftsmanship of the games we create together,” said Chris Bell. “Our top priority is making sure our teammates enjoy our lives and are given the tools and resources to grow while creating compelling, well-crafted, thoughtful games that cultivate novel shared experiences between players online.”
The team says it aims to create artfully-crafted, living environments that will foster those multiplayer interactions. Their upcoming, unnamed game will build upon shared online experiences, with players “crossing paths in a mysterious and magical world.”
You can find the studio’s open positions here on Gardens site.
This is a team of developers that certainly caught my eye. Games like Journey and Blaseball certainly put interesting spins on multiplayer gameplay. It’ll be interesting to see where Gardens goes, and what its magical world has in store.