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Playground Games working on ANOTHER Xbox One game? Forza Horizon, Fable and MORE to come? (Pic: MICROSOFT)
This week, it's emerged that Playground Games is extending its studio – hiring more staff in what seems to be a bid to open another branch.
We know Playground Games from the Forza Horizon series and an as yet untitled open-world RPG, but nothing more at this point… many are suspecting the latter game will be an entry in the Fable series, but that remains to be seen.
Playground recently posted over 100 new roles on its LinkedIn page, and wants to extend its roster to three studios: one working on Forza Horizon, one working on the open-world RPG (likely Fable) and the final one working on a new, undisclosed IP.
We expect to hear more about the studio's projects at X0.
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According to a poster on games forum Resetera, this will be Microsoft Studiosssecond-largestt studio with over 400 development staff.
The current first largest studio is 343 Industries with 500+ staff and the third largest studio is The Coalition with 300+ employees.
Playground's update and hiring sprew would make it bigger than fellow UK Microsoft-owned studio, Rare (which has about 200 employees).
Rychu on Resetera notes: "100+ made Forza Horizon series while 200+ are planned to work on Fable. That would leave another 100 unaccounted for?"
It's likely they'll be working on another game to complement Forza and (what we suspect) Fable.
Playground Games Plans To Grow To 400 Employees.
They posted in LinkedIn over 100 jobs and if you go at their website there posted even more.
They want to create three studios division:
1. Forza Horizon Studio
2. Open World RPG Studio (Next Gen Fable)
3. New IP Studio (Unknown) pic.twitter.com/lakluR3zJk— Post Up (@PostUp_BBB) September 22, 2018
We don't really know much about the other Fable game – but we could be due to hear about it at Microsoft's X0 conference later this year.
Microsoft has formally acknowledged Playground Games other, non-Forza project, though.
In an interview with DualShockers, Xbox games marketing general manager Aaron Greenberg confirmed that the team was working on a “big, big project."
Granted, that's not an awful lot of information, but it is confirmation that the company is working on something else aside from the popular racing game series.
Greenberg noted:
'I think if you look at Playground and their pedigree and the way that they approach game development, the sense of purpose they put behind it, the care, the thoughtfulness…The team is so talented, and just know that same leadership and the same thought process, what theyre bringing to Seasons and just totally innovating open-world gaming with Forza Horizon 4.
"That same leadership, that same talent pool is gonna be driving influence on this second project.
"While its a secret project and I understand that you and probably all gamers out there the thing they want to know most about, we just ask for a little bit of patience, but know that making sure our world-class team is working on a big, big exclusive game for our fans, is something they should be excited about."
Now that Microsoft has formally acknowledged this other project exists, does that mean we can expect to hear more about it soon? Here's hoping.
You can read more about the assumed Fable 4 here.
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