Avalanche Studios Announces Opening Of New York Studio

Stockholm, Sweden-based Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios has announced the official opening of a new, 10,000 square foot facility in New York City's SoHo district. The expansion, which has been in planning for three years and was originally announced in June, will help the company house 50 new employees over the next 12 months, according to today's announcement, with an option for a further 3,000 square feet of space in the future. "Today is a great day for Avalanche Studios as we have achieved yet another goal by establishing a new studio in the greatest city in North America," Avalanche founder and executive producer Christofer Sundberg said in a statement. Former Activision and Atari executive David Grijns will lead a team of Avalanche senior staff and new hires at the new location, which will be focused on Project Mamba, an unannounced console and PC title set for a 2014 release. Roland Lesterlin, formerly creative director at Mindspark Interactive, will serve as director on the project. The studio's latest release, downloadable action title Renegade Ops, saw a little over 12,000 players in its first month on Xbox Live Arcade, according to a Gamasutra analysis of leaderboard statistics.