Former GRIN Members Find New Home With Whiteout

Former developers from defunct Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Terminator Salvation studio GRIN have formed a new Swedish studio, Whiteout, and they say they've got "some very exciting concepts" in the works. Whiteout says its goal is to "entice gamers to warm up next to their consoles"; its first game, described as a "bigger project" will make use of Crytek's CryEngine 3, with which it's already made a playable prototype it feels is very promising. But alongside what's imagined as a larger-scale console title, many of Whiteout's new ideas are aimed at digital platforms, explains co-founder Joel Fagerlund. "At GRIN, we saw the community's extraordinary response to Bionic Commando: Rearmed, he says "Couple that with the fact that new releases such as Limbo and Joe Danger have been so well received, we know that the digital marketplace is vibrant and thriving." This is the third new reported venture formed out of the closure of GRIN -- a twelve-year studio that's also worked on Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1 and 2 for PC, Ballistics and Bandits. The studio ran into trouble when weak sales of its games collided with the economic downturn. But since then, the GRIN team has split off into other new companies. Its former QA team has created a quality assurance house called Trinity QA; and a small team founded Stockholm-based Might And Delight, to focus on retro-inspired games in the vein of Rearmed. Whiteout says it'll be at Gamescom later this year to meet with potential partners and talk more about what they'll be working on.