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Ex-Blizzard Veterans Form Hyboreal Games

New game developer Hyboreal Games, based in San Carlos, California, has announced its formation by Eric Sexton, Michio Okamura and Steven Woo, all industry veterans and f...

Simon Carless, Blogger

November 28, 2005

1 Min Read
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New game developer Hyboreal Games, based in San Carlos, California, has announced its formation by Eric Sexton, Michio Okamura and Steven Woo, all industry veterans and former developers for Blizzard North, following the recent closing of that studio. At the Bay Area-based Blizzard North, the three contributed significantly to the Diablo franchise, which has sold well over 13 million copies worldwide. Okamura is a veteran developer and artist responsible for design on the original Diablo, and a former Creative Lead for Blizzard Entertainment, whereas Sexton is a Senior Game Designer, and Steven Woo a Lead Programmer who was responsible for coordinating the worldwide localization important to the successful international release of Diablo II. The company has announced that it is "creating an original game franchise from conception to completion", going by the name Starfall on the Hyboreal's official website, which also indicates that the game will be a PC title, and also suggests that outsourcing will be an important part of the game's development, commenting that Hyboreal will be "...lowering our development cost through outsourcing to a reliable partner who we had a previous development relationship."

About the Author

Simon Carless

Blogger

Simon Carless is the founder of the GameDiscoverCo agency and creator of the popular GameDiscoverCo game discoverability newsletter. He consults with a number of PC/console publishers and developers, and was previously most known for his role helping to shape the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Conference for many years.

He is also an investor and advisor to UK indie game publisher No More Robots (Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw), a previous publisher and editor-in-chief at both Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine, and sits on the board of the Video Game History Foundation.

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