Ex-Metroid devs create new company, will develop titles for all platforms
In April of this year, three critical members of Retro Studios who are best known for their work on the Metroid Prime series, left the company. There were a rumor that the three men who left – Mark Pacini, Todd Keller and Jack Mathews – were interested in forming their own video game company. Well, yep, the rumors were true. Pacini announced today that he, along with his other two cohorts, have created Armature Studios. Furthermore, the company already has a publishing deal with EA.
“EA approached us with this really interesting business model of creating a small studio that is only comprised of industry veterans. The goal is to create new IP with a very, very small team and to produce a game without having to grow that team. From my stand point, I’ve never worked on any other console. I’ve always made games for Nintendo. I’m reinvigorated. I’m really excited about what other opportunities are out there. How can we use Xbox Live? How can we use the power of the PS3? I think it really opens it up. I’m not saying it was by any means restrictive working for Nintendo. We had this palette to work on, the Wii and the DS, but now we have everything. That’s just really, really exciting.” – Mark Pacini
Armature Studios is not able to work on the Metroid franchise any longer, but Todd Keller has already expressed interest in possibly returning to work on Samus’ future sometime down the road.
“Personally, I would love to work on another Metroid game. I have been in love with Metroid for years. We had a chance to recreate a game that was created way back when. That was awesome.” – Todd Keller