Former LucasArts devs found Fearless Studios

Former LucasArts producer and engineering director Haden Blackman and Cedrick Collomb have announced the formation of Fearless Studios.

Blackman parted ways with LucasArts earlier this year, with his writing duties on The Force Unleashed II his last work there.

While he has yet to give concrete reasons for his departure, he spoke plainly to Gamasutra about the attractions of independence.

"I had a great time playing in someone else's sandbox, and now it's time to go build my own," he said.

"The whole point of any independent developer, and the reason most people do it, is they want more control over the types of games they make, who they make them with, and how they make it."

Blackman particularly praised Jim Ward's stewardship of LucasArts. "Ward had a very strong vision for the types of games we should be building; he wanted us to build games for the players, and not necessarily for ourselves.

"That was a very important lesson... he pushed us to be innovative, creative, and to take risks within the context of these big, blockbuster-type games."

Blackman also claimed that he and Collomb's departure from LucasArts was unrelated to the recent lay-offs there.

Claiming that he and Fearless co-founder Collomb had shared development sensibilities, he provided faint hints as the new studio's planned projects "I really want to build big, story-driven action games. And I'm a big horror buff; I would love to do a horror game. That's kind of where our headspace is at right there."

Speaking to USA Today, he revealed that current-generation consoles would be the lead focus, but iPhone and XBLA titles would be considered.

Said Collomb in a statement, "Fearless Studios will marry compelling content with the most advanced game technologies and software, crafted and customized specifically for the experiences we want to create.

"We're not building technology for its own sake; we want everything we do to show up onscreen to entertain the player-that's all that matters to us."

Blackman will be Fearless' co-president and chief creative officer, while Collomb will be co-president and chief technology officer. Also joining as acting CFO is Marc Jackson, founder of Seahorn Capital Group, and formerly financial advisor on titles including Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Ex-LucasArts president Jack Sorensen also today revealed a new studio, Famous Games.