Ex-SOE devs join ex-Square Enix president to form Hero Machine

There's a new indie outfit in San Diego: Hero Machine Studios, cofounded by former Square Enix America chief Mike Fischer alongside former Sony Online Entertainment devs Mat Broome and Kevin McPherson.

What's especially interesting here is that Fischer, who stepped down as CEO of Square Enix America in 2013 and went on to serve stints at companies like Amazon and Epic, is also a cofounder of the recently-established VR studio CloudGate.

McPherson and Broome, for their part, both have experience working on Planetside 2 and other high-profile SOE projects prior to the studio's sale last year by Sony, which resulted in sweeping layoffs and a name change to Daybreak.

That's notable in light of the fact they're currently trying to Kickstart Hero Machine's debut game, Kinetik, which is billed as a "tactical RPG shooter" built with Unreal Engine 4.