Ex-CoD Developers Launch New Studio for Non-CoD Games

• Industry veterans from Activision Blizzard form BulletFarm, a new game development studio.
• BulletFarm, led by David Vonderhaar, is developing a co-op first-person shooter on Unreal Engine 5.
• Vonderhaar aims to challenge industry norms including annualization and crunch culture.
• He believes in managing teams sustainably and empowering individual developers.
• BulletFarm's operations are small and intimate, aiming for quality over quantity.

A New Chapter in Co-op Shooters: Introducing BulletFarm

A fresh wave of talent emerges from the recent high-profile departures from Activision Blizzard. Several of these industry veterans have gone on to establish their own game development studios, directly challenging the dominance of their former employer.

The latest to join the fray is BulletFarm, a studio backed by Netease and led by David Vonderhaar, a seasoned designer renowned for his work on the Call of Duty series at Treyarch.

A Fresh Approach to First-Person Shooters

David Vonderhaar and his team are currently developing a first-person shooter. However, the scale of the team and other aspects of the project are a stark contrast to what Vonderhaar achieved over the years on Call of Duty.

The debut game from BulletFarm will be a first-person shooter developed on Unreal Engine 5 that emphasizes intimate, cooperative gameplay in an original universe. The studio, which operates remotely, is set to grow from its current four employees to around 15 by the end of 2024 as development ramps up.

Challenging Industry Norms

In a recent interview, Vonderhaar, who left Treyarch in the recent past, shared that he never envisioned starting his own studio. However, he saw it as the ultimate challenge for a game creator. He felt that after his years in the industry, he owed it to himself to take this bold step and do things differently.

While Vonderhaar didn't directly criticize Treyarch or Activision Blizzard, he appeared to distance himself from several practices associated with these studios and their franchises, including annualization, exploitative monetization strategies, crunch culture, and a scale that limits the influence individual developers can have on a project.

A New Era of Game Development

Vonderhaar shared his thoughts on the current state of the gaming industry, noting that games are being "annualized, franchised, sequel-ized, and battle pass-ed to death." He sees BulletFarm as taking a more traditional approach.

He also expressed his belief that leaders in the gaming industry have a responsibility to manage their teams more sustainably, for the benefit of both developers and players. He hopes to empower his developers to have a direct influence on their game's development, a feat he believes isn't possible when teams consist of thousands of developers working on minute details across various studios.

Vonderhaar is enthusiastic about the intimate scale of BulletFarm's operations, stating, "Small and intimate studio, small and intimate game, right? Culturally it lines up better when everyone has a big stake in the game and you're not designer No. 709 who works on tree props."

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