14 DAY TRIAL // Mark Pacini, Todd Keller and Jack Mathews are three of the guys that made Metroid the phenomenon we know. They are the former game director, in charge of the entire development process, the art director and the principal technology engineer that worked at Retro Studios when Metroid was in production for Nintendo.
Now the three of them are announcing that they have set up a new development studio, called Armature, based in Austin, Texas, while also signing an exclusive deal with Electronic Arts to publish their games. They have not announced any project that they are currently working on.
They say that “The goal of Armature is to create compelling new intellectual properties with a unique development framework that leverages a small core creative team and partners them with strategic external developers”.
The studio will be working with EA Blueprint, a division of the publisher that was set up with the specific task of managing a host of small studios that aim to present new and interesting ideas that can be produced with modest resources and that can then be transitioned into important franchises for Electronic Arts. Blueprint is one of the manifestations of the John Ricitiello school of thought concerning videogame development, which puts quality of games and innovation ahead of quantity.
Louis Castle, the EA Blueprint guy who is set to be executive producer at Armature, says that “ can’t begin to describe how thrilled I am to be working with the talented team that created such an amazingly well-crafted series of games”.
It's unlikely that the trio will create another game like Metroid very soon, but judging them by their previous work, it's pretty clear that they have the talent to make something interesting and weird, in a good way. I'm looking forward to seeing and playing the first Armature made and Electronic Arts published videogame.