Dragon Age’s Mike Laidlaw joins Thomas Giroux, Jeff Skalski, and Frederic St. Laurent B. in helming a new independent studio called Yellow Brick Games.
The creative minds behind Yellow Brick Games have an incredible history making amazing adventures for gamers to enjoy. From Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs to BioWare’s Mass Effect and Dragon Age, the team behind Yellow Brick Games knows a thing or two about crafting an excellent experience.
“We have learned a lot from working on world-class, multi-year projects with thousands of colleagues and we want to take a different approach,” said Skalski, the studio’s Executive Producer and Chief Operating Officer. “Leveraging a smaller talented team where people come first, we will create amazing worlds and experiences for all others to enjoy. The market is moving fast, and we have no desire to play catchup and chase it when we can influence where it goes. These goals drove us to found Yellow Brick Games.”
Mike Laidlaw will be assuming the role of Chief Creative Officer with Jeff Skalski as the studio’s Executive Producer and Chief Operating Officer, Thomas Giroux as Chief Executive Producer, and Frederic St.Laurent B. as Game Director.
“The market for independently produced games is growing rapidly and the technology is keeping pace,” said Laidlaw. “Small, diverse teams can now create high-quality experiences. For veterans of big-studio productions like myself and much of our team, this is the perfect time to get back to a small, agile, and highly motivated group. We want our games here at Yellow Brick to take potentially millions of players on wondrous journeys, and we want every member of our team to have a direct impact on the new worlds we’re creating.”
With fifteen employees total at this current time, the team is already hard at work on their first original game that will harness the power of this generation with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. With a creative vision in mind, the team at Yellow Brick Games will continue to grow in the coming months, though the “craftmanship approach” will be always at the core of the studio’s vision as it expands.
“We want to emphasize a “back-to-basics approach”, centered on the pleasure of crafting new game experiences, in a flexible and more personable environment that an independent studio can provide,” said Giroux. “We have all the resources at our disposal to achieve our goals.”
As a massive fan of the franchises these devs have been a part of, I’m personally excited to see what the team can come up with when locked in a shared vision.
You can learn more about the latest studio with its official website right here.