Former Ubisoft, EA, and BioWare devs set up shop as indie dev Yellow Brick Games

Four devs with leadership experience from the likes of Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and BioWare have teamed up to form Yellow Brick Games and take aim at developing indie games with a "craftsmanship approach."

Those four founding developers include former Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw who departed Ubisoft earlier this year after little more than a year at the company. Laidlaw is joined by Ubisoft Montreal veteran and Sunny Side Up Creative founder Thomas Giroux, former Ubisoft and EA senior producer Jeff Skalski, and longtime Ubisoft Quebec game director and designer Frédéric St-Laurent B.

"We have learned a lot from working on world-class, multi-year projects with thousands of colleagues and we want to take a different approach," reads a statement from Skalski, now Yellow Brick's COO and executive producer.

"Leveraging a smaller talented team where people come first, we will create amazing worlds and experiences for all others to enjoy. The market is moving fast, and we have no desire to play catchup and chase it when we can influence where it goes. These goals drove us to found Yellow Brick Games."

Yellow Brick is headquartered in Quebec City, but has a staff of 15 developers working remotely across Montreal and other countries. Currently, the team is working on an original game for the new console generation, and aims to do so while keeping a "craftsmanship approach" as the company's core vision, even as it grows its team.

"We want to emphasize a 'back-to-basics approach,' centered on the pleasure of crafting new game experiences, in a flexible and more personable environment that an independent studio can provide," reads a statement from Giroux, Yellow Brick's CEO. "We have all the resources at our disposal to achieve our goals."