EA announced the newest studio in its stable studio, Full Circle, and based in Vancouver, but also globally focused, the studio will be the team behind the new Skate game announced. While it is unclear whether the newest entry into the Skate franchise will be either Skate 4, or the reboot of the franchise, or something else, EA has confirmed that the Full Circle team will be led by Daniel McCulloch, the former head of Box Live at Microsoft. Skate’s return producers, Deran Chung and Cuz Parry, remain on board, having appeared in the Skate sequel announcement video at EA Play 2020.
“The fans wanted Skate to come back into existence and we want them to feel involved in the process from development to the launch of the game and afterwards. We want them to feel that they are part of Full Circle, ”said McCulloch in a statement accompanying the announcement. “What matters is having fun and creating great games that people want to play with friends. And, we’re looking for more developers to help us build attractive worlds for players to explore. ”The new studio is hiring for various positions, including artists, designers and engineers, and although it is based in Vancouver, it is” adopting a diverse geo-team “with members involved in development” around the globe. “
Full Circle joins EA Sports and Respawn Entertainment as the third EA Studio in the Canadian city.
Unfortunately, there is no new word about the development of the next Skate so far, or any additional details about the vision of the next game, but at the end of last year we learned that the new Skate can have a focus on user-generated content. At the time, Andrew Wilson from EA discussed how the new Skate was in “early development”, but that trends in the skate world could fit into the scope of the new game.
“You take a game like skateboarding, and while skateboarding alone has tremendous appeal to a large global audience, there is another secular trend that is happening in our industry around user-generated content, the open world and interaction,” said Wilson “So for many people, you think about skating as a starting point that has appeal, but you start building user-generated content, exploration and community on top of that and that expands the opportunity exponentially.”
Jonathon Dornbush is Senior News Editor at IGN, host of the Beyond! And PlayStation leader. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.
