A new game studio has emerged once again, raising hopes with a new immersive shooter.
emptyvessel (small caps intended) is a new studio made up of veterans in the video game industry. They share this description of their company on their website:
“emptyvessel is a team of industry veterans who specialize in the immersive shooter space. We believe that with Creative Independence, Comes Greatness.
We have assembled an inclusive and diverse team that have been empowered to be creative no matter their discipline because our innovation is fueled by our people. Our studio is an emptyvessel being filled by our creators and, soon, a gaming community who will help craft the new horizon of gaming.”
On their team page, they list several of their founders and their accolades. Most players will likely immediately recognize Mick Garris, their composer, but we’ll run down some more names below.
Emanuel Palalic seems to be the key figure behind emptyvessel. He is listed as game director, and has credits in Doom, Killing Floor 3, and Exodus, the upcoming title from Archetype Entertainment that was revealed in last year’s The Game Awards, and features Matthew McConaughey.
Garrett Young, the studio’s general manager, held leadership roles in Activision, Microsoft, and id software. Notably, he helped lead id through their reboots of Doom, Quake, and Rage.
Wei Ning, the company’s tech director, cites his background from Weta Digital and working on Blade Runner 2049.
Kevin Powell, senior design director, specializes in combat systems. In his 14 years in the industry, he worked on Borderlands, Smite, Tribes, and Wayfarer.
Rico Flores, animation director, is also a 14 year veteran, who worked on Uncharted, Anthem, and the upcoming Archetype title, Exodus.
Alex Palma, art director, worked on both video games and the film industry. His credits include Doom, Doom Eternal, and Killing Floor 3.
And there are even more people in the studio, but we felt this would give a clear enough idea of how many veterans joined up to work on this new company. The video game industry is, of course, traditionally built by startups, but their introduction comes at a time when gamers fret about the extended wave of layoffs that has been going on in the industry since last year. Those layoffs also came with the cancellation or shrinking of multiple game projects.
But emptyvessel’s very existence seems to indicate that opportunity still knocks within the video game industry. We certainly look forward to learning what their upcoming title will be when they officially reveal it.
You can watch emptyvessel’s studio teaser video below.
