Good news. Despite the crisis in the industry, new gaming companies are still emerging. Emanuel Palalic and Garrett Young have announced the launch of a new studio. It's called Emptyvessel. This is the second such announcement in the last 24 hours.
Palalik, who is listed as a game director in the new studio, was previously not responsible for either management or development in general. He has drawn characters for projects such as Doom (2016), Quake Champions, Doom Eternal, Exodus, Killing Floor 3 and Splitgate.
Yang, who took on the role of operations and CEO, on the other hand, is an experienced manager. Since 1995, he has managed to work in production roles at Microsoft and Activision, as well as become director of production at The Walt Disney Company. Plus, he headed id Software for more than five years (Doom 2016 was created and launched under him).
In addition to them, the founding team includes:
- Wei Ning, who was previously responsible for developing software for special effects for the films "Avengers: Finale", "Chronicles of Predatory Cities", "Alita: Battle Angel" and many others, and after that was closely involved in blockchain;
- Alex Palma, who has worked as a concept artist at id Software for more than seven years;
- Ricardo Flores, animator of Uncharted 4, Anthem and the as-yet-unreleased Exodus from Archetype Entertainment.
As for other employees of the new studio, among them, for example, Dan Moditch, senior producer of Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal, as well as one of those who was responsible for all weapons (from mechanics and behavior to visual) in Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty Black.
In general, the studio has a lot of experienced staff who previously worked as line specialists on large famous projects.
The studio is officially based in Austin, but the team works remotely from various cities in the USA, Australia and Europe.
The team is currently developing an immersive AAA shooter, The System, inspired by "films, graphic novels and games set in dystopian fantasy worlds." The development is based on Unreal Engine 5.
It is positioned that the team operates independently. By now, its management has already managed to attract a seed round, although its volume is unknown. Among others, the money was invested by Sisu Game Ventures, Raptor Group, Tripwire Interactive co-owner Bill Munk, one of the former heads of Treyarch, Dan Bunting, and others.