A collection of "core" staff from Typhoon Studios, one of the in-house game developers Google shut down earlier this year, are reforming under a new name.
Announced in a company press release, the new Montreal-based studio, which will go by the name Raccoon Logic, will pick up where Typhoon Studios left off. The new developer has also reclaimed the rights to its predecessor's acclaimed IP, Journey to the Savage Planet.
Raccoon Logic has managed to retain many of the core talents that made up Typhoon Studios. The newly-forged studio founders boast an impressive resume of experience, with members of the team having previously held positions at Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and WB Games Montreal amongst other developers.
Alex Hutchinson was previously Creative Director for Ubisoft's Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed 3. Reid Schneider was previously a Co-Founder of WB Games Montreal and Executive Producer on Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Arkham Knight.
Hutchinson and Schneider are joined by Yannick Simard (Watch Dogs 1 and 2), Erick Bilodeau (Batman: Arkham Origins), and Marc-Antoine Lussier (Assassin's Creed 1-3 and Assassin's Creed Unity).
In order to reform the studio has secured a large initial investment from the Chinese technology company, Tencent. “The early investment from Tencent is a huge boost, meaning we can do significant work on our own before we start talking to publishers," says Hutchinson, Raccoon Logic's Creative Director.
Little is known about Raccoon Logic's unannounced debut project, but Hutchinson did offer some insight into what the team might be working on: "We love systemic games, games with a sense of humor and a big heart, and games with strong flavors that get reactions from players. We’re going to keep pushing on those ideas and we’ll have something to show soon!”
Elsewhere in the press release, Hutchinson confirmed that Raccoon Logic would be looking to build upon the Journey to the Savage Planet franchise in the future and said that it's something the studio is really excited about. Journey to the Savage Planet was originally released in January 2020 for PC, Xbox One and PS4. The game was then further released on Google Stadia on February 1 of this year – the same day that Google shut down Typhoon Studios and a number of in-house developers. Be sure to check out our Journey to the Savage Planet review.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.