Halo Co-Creator and EA Announce New Studio

By Rollin Bishop

Electronic Arts has announced that it will open a new studio in Seattle led by Marcus Lehto, known for being the co-creator of the Halo franchise as well as most recently president and game director of V1 Interactive. Lehto is set to be Game Director at the new studio, which seemingly does not yet have a name, following the closure of V1 Interactive earlier this year.

"I'm very excited to announce that I've joined EA as a Game Director, building a new studio in the Seattle area working on first-person games," Lehto shared on social media earlier this week. "I can't wait to share more about what we're creating!!"

"We are sad to inform you that V1 Interactive is officially closing," Lehto's former company announced back in March. "We want to thank all the talented people at V1, both past and present, who helped make the last 5 years wonderful. And a heartfelt thanks to the amazing community that supported us."

V1 Interactive's one and only release, Disintegration, was released in June of 2020 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam and received a fairly mediocre critical response. The writing was quickly on the wall for the title as mere months after launch, it was announced that it would be removing its multiplayer modes entirely from the video game. That said, just because the last game Lehto released did not fare well does not necessarily mean anything for his tenure at EA.

At this point, there is no telling what Lehto and Electronic Arts are working on beyond the fact that it will be a first-person game of some kind. Given Lehto's background, the likely bet is a shooter of some kind. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Electronic Arts right here.

What do you think about Electronic Arts starting up another studio in Seattle focusing on first-person games? Are you interested to see whatever it is that Lehto ends up working on? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!

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