Take-Two is one of the big publishers in the game industry which name does not crop up in the mainstream. But they are behind 2K, the publishers of yearly sports games, Bioshock and Firaxis’ strategy games as well as Rockstar Games, the brand behind GTA and Red Dead Redemption. Now there is another label being introduced for smaller indie development games, Private Division.
As reported by Game Informer, four new games have been signed by this new label from teams with strong developer backgrounds from the AAA space. Expect these games to be “indie-AAA” as pioneered by Ninja Theory with Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Kerbal Space Program by Squad, which Take-Two purchased some time ago, is also revealed to be part of this label.
One of the games is an unannounced game by Obsidian (the one teased a few months back as Eurogamer almost stumbled upon) which brought co-creators of Fallout, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, into the company built by ex-Fallout developers. Panache Digital’s Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, led by the creative director of Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2, Patrice Désilets, has also signed up under Private Division.
The other two games are Project Wight by The Outsiders (led by Andrew Goldfarb of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Payday 2 fame) and an unannounced FPS from V1 Interactive, led by Marcus Letho, a formerly worked on Bungie and worked on the Halo series.
Private Division has so far been funding to publish these games (and maintain development, as for Kerbal Space Program) with very little intervention. The four new games’ developers maintain their IP rights too.
It’s an interesting approach that should promote the growth of smaller but experienced development studios. Smaller games like these have more liberties to make creative decisions (good or not) without worrying too much about monetisation and sales like most AAA games are subject to. So it’s good to see Take-Two is taking the plunge into indie games in their own way.