At Notorious Studios you won't find a single employee who didn't work on the poster-boy of the MMO genre, "Word of Warcraft." Chris Kaleiki and Doug Frazer left Activision-Blizzard in October 2021 due to the rampant harassment and abuses the company currently faces $35 Million in charges for.
Chris Kaleiki was the systems and class designer for "World of Warcraft" before co-founding Notorious with Blizzard's Senior Gameplay Engineer Doug Frazer after leaving the company. The company even received investment from Riot Games as part of a $5 Million funding round led by Galaxy Interactive, securing the budding team vital start-up capital. With this money the duo was able to hire 6 additional members to the studio with a goal of having 12 members by the end of 2022.
Today, Notorious stands at 15 employees. All working together with OTK to bring forward their first game, currently called "Project Honor", a multiplayer RPG, though not an MMO, featuring a blend of PvP and PvE elements. The game is in its earliest stages of development and shows some impressive classic RPG concept art with plans to produce the game in Unreal Engine 5, which could lead to a visually stunning fantasy RPG the likes of which gamers have not had since "Wrath of the Lich King."
The team is wanting a flatter structure to their studio, removing the gaps in authority that lead to the rampant sexual assault and violent bullying that was the status quo at Activision-Blizzard. Their idea that, by maintaining a planar command structure that works horizontally, instead of vertically, they can prevent abuse seems sound in theory, but we shall see what happens in the long term.
The studio is still hiring staff for many positions needed to bring "Project Honor" to the market, including an Environment Artist and a Networking Engineer. We at Virtizi will be keeping close tabs on the budding studio to see exactly what they can do and what they can achieve, as well as providing you with the latest information about the new RPG.
Comments