When Respawn Entertainment, the studio founded in 2010 by former Infinity Ward executives, got acquired a little over two years ago by Electronic Arts, there were worries that the studio could lose itself inside EA's corporate structure as others had in the past.
As it turns out, the opposite is turning out to be true. After taking on the mantle of the savior with hits like Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, it is Respawn's development culture that will be adopted across other EA teams, as Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele explained in a new interview with LA Times.
I feel really strongly about this and Vince has taught me a lot about this: rapid prototyping. As I have partnered with him, I’ve noticed they [Respawn] get their games stood up and they have hands on their games really soon, sooner than other studios we have, outside of sports. So we’ve adopted and brought in new prototyping tools and are highly encouraging teams to prototype and prove out game type, game flow and game features before we get to art execution and make it look pretty for executive presentations.
Chad Grenier, Game Director for Apex Legends at Respawn, confirmed:
We tend to rapidly prototype characters at a high rate and throw them away when they’re not working. We do 10 times more prototypes than what actually make it into the game.
Meanwhile, founder and CEO Vince Zampella (who is also taking up the job of heading up DICE LA to turn it into its development own team instead of a mere support studio) suggested that there are more projects in the works at Respawn beyond Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, due this year for the Oculus Rift.
There might be more.
Now, before Titanfall fans get too excited about a third game, this could be anything and we don't even know when it'll be announced, either. Still, we'll keep an eye out on any noteworthy rumors and leaks, as Respawn can now be considered EA's premiere studio.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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