The first terabyte-sized game may be on the way. Jade Raymond, who previously left to work on Stadia, is back in normal game development. After Google’s effort flopped hard, Raymond moved on to make a new studio. That new studio takes on a very unique form. The first game from the new outfit has only been teased, and it’s very unclear what kind of game it is.
Jade Raymond spoke with GI.biz about her studio’s first project, which will apparently have a massive file size. Talking of her team’s ambition, she pondered, “What does it meant to support the first terabyte game? What does it meant to support this level of data?”
Going further, Raymond talked about the attitude the team is taking to working on their games. Haven is being funded in part by various backers, including Sony PlayStation. She also talked about the timing, and when she knew it was time to move on. “It started to become obvious that we weren’t going to be able to continue. Luckily [Google] were very supportive of me looking at a spin-out,” said Raymond.
“My biggest motivation for doing this was that we had this great talent assembled already, and I wanted to keep that momentum, and create a ‘haven’ for that team to continue great work,” said Raymond.
Haven’s operative word is “kindness.” Raymond elaborated, “We really believe that kindness is going to unlock the creative freedom and innovation. Kindness emerged as the biggest word and was echoed by everyone.”
Haven Studios is currently a 54-employee outfit that works out of Montreal, Canada. On staff are many Assassin’s Creed veterans. For now, this seems to be some kind of new IP, and it may be massive. As far as I can tell, there’s no real indication in terms of what kind of game to expect. If it will actually be 1 TB or larger, is also not clear.