THQ Announces Formation Of Kaos Studios

Major U.S. headquartered publisher THQ Inc. today announced the opening of the New York-based Kaos Studios, founded by veterans of Trauma Studios, creators of the Desert Combat and Battlefield 2 R&D projects, as a new internal THQ studio. Kaos' first project is an original intellectual property for next generation consoles and Windows PC scheduled for release in 2007, according to a company statement. Trauma Studios was originally set up by the creators of the at that time non-professional Desert Combat mod, and was purchased by Battlefield 2 creator Digital Illusions CE back in September 2004. However, following Electronic Arts' success in its concerted efforts to build a majority holding in DICE, Trauma was closed in June 2005, with DICE saying only that the conditions and the future plans of the company differed considerably following the EA majority shareholding. "THQ is committed to supporting strong creative talent, as evidenced by our growing internal development system which now numbers 18 teams across 12 studios," said Dan Kelly, senior vice president of business development, THQ. "We are thrilled to make the full resources of THQ available to the Kaos team to help them realize their vision of building a world-class studio in New York City that will deliver compelling original properties." According to the company, more information about Kaos Studios and their first project will be forthcoming later in 2006.