I can't tell you when Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic will come out, but we have strong assurance that it will indeed be coming out. This is thanks to funding from a newly established holding company founded by a former president of NetEase, who's managed to obtain a substantial starting investment.
This entity is called GreaterThan Group, and it's founded by Simon Zhu, who led NetEase for 12 years while investing in numerous other teams, such as Quantic Dream and Rebel Wolves. The operation is fresh, having just started last year, and it's going public now because it's got a combined $100 million or so on the go, providing guaranteed runway for the foreseeable future.
"GTG is bringing common sense back to the games industry," Zhu says in a press release. "Our role is to create the right conditions for creators to work on their dream projects, so they can devote the vast majority of their time and energy building their game, free from unnecessary distractions. That’s the proven formula behind most of the greatest games ever made."
Three studios are part of the GTG starting lineup: BulletFarm, a new studio featuring former Call of Duty developers that's working on an unannounced FPS; MAGship, a company centred around anime featuring Masato Sakai, a key figure in the popularity of Yu-Gi-Oh!; and Arcanaut Studios, the team co-founded by Casey Hudson making Fate of the Old Republic, a spiritual successor to the Knights of the Old Republic games of old. No disrespect to the other two, but that last one is definitely the most intriguing at first glance.
A throwback to BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic games, spearheaded by someone who was there and who worked on the Mass Effect trilogy to boot? I am seated. It's reassuring to see this listed among GreaterThan's partnerships, given the unsteadiness of the industry right now, and Zhu doubles down on giving creatives space to do their thing in an interview with Bloomberg.
"You can have player satisfaction. You can have commercial success. You can have the achievement of art. You don't need to compromise or sacrifice one thing for the other," he explained. "The industry treats developers so badly. I think there should always be a rebalancing force treating developers better."
