Forza Horizon developers leave Playground Games to create new AAA studio: Maverick Games

Several Forza Horizon developers have left Playground Games to create their own new video game development studio called Maverick Games. Forza Horizon 5 creative director Mike Brown and Xbox’s Playground Games veteran will be leading this new team. Maverick Games first order of business will be to develop a new “premium open-world game for consoles and PC”.

Maverick Games

Maverick Games has six ex-employees from Playground including Tom Butcher, a lead producer at Playground. He’ll take on the role at Maverick as executive producer. Gareth Harwood will be Maverick's content director. Matt Craven, previously a technical director at Playground, is now be the chief technical officer at the new studio. Fraser Stachan and Ben Penrose have moved from Playground to Maverick as audio directors. 

 

 

The studio will also be based in UK just like Playground Games, in fact it will be in the same game development hub of Leamington Spa. Maverick Games said in a press release that they’ve already secured “significant seed funding” and they will now start “actively working on its new game”. 
 

 

 

Mike Brown said, “Our goal is for Maverick Games to be a studio people will love.” He added, “For players, we're already at work on an exciting ultra-high quality title, and for developers, we're building a home where everyone is encouraged to take risks, be curious, be creative, be innovative, be themselves, and above all - be a Maverick."

Microsoft’s Playground Games was founded back in 2010 and has went on to deliver one of the most successful franchise for Xbox. Forza Horizon 5, winner of several Game of the Year awards, was released in 2021 for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC.