Former Starbreeze employees start virtual reality games start-up

Former Starbreeze employees have set up VR game development studio First Contact Entertainment. Now 20-strong, the studio features developers from Robotki, Blizzard, Treyarch, Infinity Ward, SCEA and Spark.

The announcement of the new studio comes through an interview with founder Hess Barber at GamesIndustry.biz. The brand new studio also has a website. Barber says in the interview that his studio’s main goal is to ‘exploit the full potential of VR’. The man is not yet revealing concrete projects, but he does say that he wants to make original games that use ‘prominent’ licenses and target all existing VR headsets. On the other hand, he also describes mobile VR and AR as interesting.

In the short term, the studio wants to grow from 20 to 30 employees. The founder says he has already secured a “significant” amount of funding, but does not reveal where it comes from. Barber expects the studio to release its first game somewhat far in the future so that the install base of virtual reality headsets is larger and there is the opportunity to make more sales.

The studio from which Barber and others come, Starbreeze, is also working on several virtual reality projects, including its own VR headset.

VP Josh Ochoa, President Hess Barber and CTO Wei Qiao of First Contact Entertainment (Image: GamesIndustry.biz)