Microsoft’s The Initiative is hiring developers from Respawn and Naughty Dog

Microsoft studio The Initiative has hired a range of new developers, including ex-employees of Respawn Entertainment and Sony studio Naughty Dog. The Initiative employs quite a few big names, although the studio’s first title has yet to be released.

Darrell Gallagher, the former CEO at Crystal Dynamics and head of The Initiative since its inception, reports on LinkedIn that 16 new employees have joined. This includes people from Respawn Entertainment, Crystal Dynamics, Naughty Dog and Bungie.

That’s what Christine Thompson is called, a major writer for Destiny 2 and Star Trek Online. Remi Lacoste has also taken up employment. He was the game director from Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Marvel’s Avengers, among others. Another name is Justin Perez, who worked as part of Respawn on designing the heroes from Jedi: Fallen Order and before that as part of Bioware on the designs for the battles in Mass Effect Andromeda. Also is gameplay programmer Francisco Aisa García now part of The Initiative. He previously worked at Naughty Dog and before that at Rockstar Games, where he worked on GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2.

The studio, which still has the necessary vacancies, since its inception in June 2018, has already attracted the necessary big names from the game industry, such as Red Dead Redemption designer Christian Cantamessa and GTA V developer Tom Shepard.

It is unknown what exactly The Initiative is working on. That is still kept a secret, something design director Drew Murray again in February underlined on Twitter. He indicated that he could not say anything about what is currently being worked on.