Halo composer O'Donnell forms Seattle studio with veteran devs

New Seattle studio Highwire Games debuted during E3 -- notable because it's co-founded by longtime Halo composer Marty O'Donnell, Bungie designer Jaime Griesemer, and Airtight Games co-founder Jared Noftle, who serves as technical director.

In a short interview, O'Donnell told Polygon that his goal is to keep the company small: "Budgets go through the roof and the teams go from small, intimate teams to multiple hundreds of people. We've been there and done that. We don't have any desire to do that again."

The company hasn't announced any projects, but O'Donnell said this: "There's some new gaming technology arriving that brings with it challenges that need to be solved."

Bungie sacked O'Donnell last year; that led to lawsuit, which was later settled. Griesemer told Polygon he left Bungie because it was "rapidly changing into a place where I no longer belonged." Airtight Games, meanwhile, shut down not long after completing work on the Square Enix-published Murdered: Soul Suspect.