Hi-Rez Studios, the developer behind Realm Royale, Smite, and Paladins, has announced that they will be creating three new studios and each will be working separately on each of their most popular games. The studios will be called Titan Forge, Evil Mojo, and Heroic Leap. Titan Forge will be working exclusively on Smite, Evil Mojo will operate Paladins, and Heroic Leap will focus on Hi-Rez Studios’ latest fantasy battle royale, Realm Royale.
The existing Hi-Rez staff behind these games will transition over to these new teams and they’ll be hiring on additional staff. Chris Larson, who was the former executive producer on Smite and Paladins, now oversees all three of these new houses under his new operating title as general manager of first-party studios. Larson explained that the creation of these new studios allowed “each of our development teams to fulfill their maximum potential and stay hyper focused on serving their individual player communities.”
“Our games are built to provide near constant updates over many years,” he added. “By giving each major game its own dedicated studio and identity, we empower them to control their own destiny and focus exclusively on their player communities, while still having access to our leading shared publishing services.”
Hi-Rez is also creating two new “service companies” to support all their teams. Skillshot Media will focus on “building player communities through esports”, and Alacrity Arthouse offer technical art services. At the moment Realm Royale is only available on PC, so it is possible that the increased attention will at last allow the Fortnite competitor to move over to consoles — and maybe even phones, too. Both Smite and Paladins are available on all consoles, including Nintendo Switch, so they presumably just need extra support. Stew Chisam, president of Hi-Rez Studios, expressed his gratitude for the new teams.
“We want each person under the Hi-Rez umbrella to be focused on building amazing player communities around incredibly creative and constantly evolving games,” he said. “We believe this is the best approach to unleash our creative talent and serve our players, while continuing to grow.”
