Wizards of the Coast has announced the opening of the New Raleigh-Durham game studio. It will be headed by industry veterans. They will be engaged in the production of AAA titles for such Hasbro franchises as G.I. Joe, Transformers, Micronauts and Ouija.Action figures based on the movie “G.I. Joe: Cobra Throw.
Snake Aiz” (Photo: Hasbro)The New Raleigh-Durham studio is located in North Carolina.
The team includes veterans from WB Games who worked on the Hitman and Batman: Arkham series.
In a conversation with Stifel Investment Bank, Wizards of the Coast CEO Chris Cocks noted that Hasbro wants to have its own gaming division to meet demand and gain a foothold in the video game market.
New Raleigh-Durham will specialize in AAA titles for consoles and PCs. Her first project will be a third-person action game in the G.I. Joe universe. The game is being developed on the Unreal Engine. Now the studio is in search of an art director, a technical director, as well as a leading animator and a game designer.
Wizards of the Coast has been part of Hasbro since 1999 and owns the rights to franchises such as Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. In 2019, the company opened a studio headed by James Ohlen. The former creative director of BioWare had to create new gaming IP for WotC.