A brand new crew has joined the ranks of PlayStation’s first-party studios. Alongside Naughty Canine, Sucker Punch, Housemarque and others now sits teamLFG, a bunch of ex-Bungie builders engaged on a mysterious “frog-type” multiplayer mission. I’ve a variety of questions, too.
PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst introduced the most recent addition to his portfolio over on the PlayStation Weblog in a publish that was conspicuously gentle on precise data, together with who really works on the new studio. “TeamLFG originated at Bungie, however has additionally rallied builders from throughout the business to carry to life an bold incubation mission that I’m very enthusiastic about,” he wrote. “The studio is now absolutely fashioned and able to be launched to the world.”
Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, teamLFG payments itself as a multiplayer-centric studio engaged on making not simply video games however total digital hangouts. “We’ll make immersive multiplayer worlds propelled by motion video games that gamers can study, play, and grasp for numerous hours. We need to construct our video games with our communities, inviting gamers to be part of our improvement course of by early entry playtests,” an nameless assertion from the crew reads.
Made up of builders who labored on Future, Halo, League of Legends, Fortnite, Roblox, and Rec Room, teamLFG’s first mission is described as “a team-based motion recreation that pulls inspiration from combating video games, platformers, MOBAs, life sims, and frog-type video games.” Hmmm. It goes on to name the world gamers will inhabit “lighthearted” and “comedic,” and the general aesthetic “mythic” and “science-fantasy.” Sounds prefer it’s aiming to be the sort of vibrant mishmash you’d anticipate from, say, Blizzard.
The one factor that basically stands proud is the “frog-type” descriptor. The time period has been puzzling Bungie followers for years, ever because it was first talked about in a hiring publish again in 2023. TeamLFG was spun out of Bungie final summer time amid mass layoffs on the studio as Sony took extra direct management of the corporate behind Future 2 which it acquired for an eye-popping $3.6 billion in 2022. Its recreation was referred to as Challenge Gummy Bears on the time, and was rumored to be a mixture of components from MOBAs, platformers, and life sims, combining them into a brand new type of on-line multiplayer expertise.
I don’t know why it’s referred to as “frog-type,” although tight moment-to-moment gamefeel has at all times been core to Bungie’s DNA and Future 2 has confirmed the builders there are masters of first-person traversal, from double jumps and blinking to satisfying booster thrusts and gliding. Possibly teamLFG’s first recreation will wrap all of that into an MMO-like expertise the place simply hanging out on the earth (and spending cash in it) is as a lot part of the expertise as finishing targets.
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