There are plenty of small studios appearing that are focusing on virtual reality (VR) development, some having more experience in the field than others. Today a new studio has been announced, Drifter Entertainment, formed by VR veterans from Epic Games, Oculus and Microsoft.
The new developer has been formed by Ray Davis, Kenneth Scott, and Brian Murphy, three highly experienced professionals who have spent their careers building platforms such as HoloLens, Oculus Rift, Xbox One, and Unreal Engine 4. This also includes well known titles like Gears of War, Doom 3, Halo 4, and Bullet Train.
“We’re passionate about the opportunity to finally bring our vision to life,” says Ray Davis, who most recently served as General Manager for Unreal Engine 4, following his role as a CTO at Microsoft on the HoloLens project. “Virtual reality represents a rare opportunity to build an entirely new generation of game experiences to completely immerse yourself in. We’re combining our expertise in crafting incredibly polished games along with our early expertise with VR to build some truly amazing (and fun!) games for these emerging platforms.”
Kenneth Scott, built his 15 years of experience as an art director in AAA game development with companies like id Software and Microsoft Game Studios. His videogame projects include Quake 3, Doom 3, Rage and Halo. Recently, Scott worked at Oculus, directing a team of veteran developers.
Last but not least is Brian Murphy, who spent the last decade as a designer and creative director at Microsoft. One of his last major projects was the creation of the virtual travel experience Holo Tour for HoloLens. “It’s pretty humbling to collaborate with such an amazing group of developers,” said Murphy. “The stuff we’ve put together over just the last few months has each of us the more excited than we’ve been about anything we’ve ever worked on. We can’t wait to show everyone what we’ve been up to.”
Seattle-based Drifter Entertainment hasn’t yet confirmed what its working on, simply stating that the studio plans to bring esports to VR.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Drift Entertainment, reporting back with any new announcements.