Bungie founder creates new studio, starts work on PC/Xbox title

Halo designer and Bungie co-founder Alexander Seropian has formed a new development studio, Wideload Games, which has started work on a new PC/Xbox title based on the Halo engine technology.

Seropian left Microsoft Game Studios, which acquired Bungie ahead of the launch of the Xbox, some time ago, and told news agency Reuters this week that he considered not returning to the games industry at all unless he could solve the difficulties he faced in creating games in the past.

The solution he is attempting to implement at the independently funded Wideload is one which has been championed regularly by developers over the past few years, but which few have actually managed to utilize - namely operating a studio with a very small number of core staff, and hiring independent staffers to actually bring the game through to completion.

As such, Wideload has only ten core staff members - but Seropian expects that it will take about fifty staff to complete the work on the Halo-engine based game which the studio is starting to develop at the moment for release in 2005.

"It's kind of broken," Seropian told Reuters, speaking about the current model of development used by the bulk of publishers. "It's kind of antiquated - it's how they were making films in the '30s."