Just Cause Developer Founds New Casual, Online-Centric Studio

Stockholm-based Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios announced on Tuesday the founding of a new development studio focused on online and casual games, dubbed Expansive Worlds. The first game under the Expansive Worlds division is theHunter, a free-to-play browser-launched hunting game that Avalanche acquired from Emote Games earlier this year. Expansive Worlds is also based in Stockholm, Sweden. A press statement from Avalanche said Expansive Worlds will have a "strong focus on community-driven subscription-based titles," while parent Avalanche will continue work on PC and console games. Avalanche launched the action game Just Cause 2 this week. Leading the new studio is managing director Stefan Pettersson, who recently was a senior consultant at Netlight Consulting AB. Avalanche co-founder and creative director Christofer Sundberg said, "Expansive Worlds plays a very important part in our long-term strategy in creating and owning innovative intellectual properties." Avalanche co-founder and CTO Linus Blomberg added that Expansive Worlds will utilize the Avalanche Engine, which is also used in the triple-A PC and console game Just Cause 2. "When used in this context [free-to-play online] the engine [will] provide for exciting opportunities to create experiences not normally associated with that market segment," Blomberg said.