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Secret Sorcery - new VR focused studio founded by Evolution vets

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GamesIndustry.biz learned this week that a number of ex-Evolution Studios members have come together to found Secret Sorcery, a new studio based in St Helens in the North West of England to "channel their creative energies into a number of original and highly immersive VR games." The studio noted that its team has "extensive hands-on experience" developing for both Project Morpheus and Oculus Rift.

Evolution Studios, owned by SCEE and known for games like MotorStorm, World Rally Championship and the more recently troubled project DriveClub, unfortunately suffered a round of layoffs in March that sacked nearly half the team, according to reports. Along with this restructuring, some members of the studio, including Scott Kirkland, a co-founder and formerly the Studio Technical Director, chose to move on.

"We're preparing to share our early work with industry partners at E3 in Los Angeles later this month as a prelude to ambitious product development and studio growth," he said. "We'd love to hear from creatively talented and skilled developers who share our enthusiasm for VR gaming via careers@secretsorcery.com. This is the beginning of something magical; we're looking forward to sharing more exciting news over the coming weeks."
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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-06-05-evolution-studios-vets-found-new-vr-studio

http://secretsorcery.com/

(Thanks to SoundofSilence for finding this)
 
I wonder if this is a lateral move within Sony for these former Evolution developers.

Evolution closes and the vets form their own studio to work with SCEE on VR projects.

It would seem strange to specifically focus a studio on VR projects unless they knew that's where the work was.
 
Busty said:
I wonder if this is a lateral move within Sony for these former Evolution developers.

Evolution closes and the vets form their own studio to work with SCEE on VR projects.

It would seem strange to specifically focus a studio on VR projects unless they knew that's where the work was.
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If it were, they would've gone to the new VR studio Sony just opened in England a month or so ago. Not started this third party that probably won't be making many exclusives.
 
Oh, for a second I thought this *was* the new Sony VR studio they were opening.

So this is an independent studio, then? Awesome.
 
Happy with how the Evolution lay offs turned out then. Don't think we would get a Morpheus title out of Evo, now we'll be getting one most likely.
 
Page source has the names scott kirkland, ian moran, craig beeston, nigel middleman, alan mcdermott as keywords.

Oh, they're all listed in article :)
 
Seanspeed said:
Oh, for a second I thought this *was* the new Sony VR studio they were opening.

So this is an independent studio, then? Awesome.
Click to expand...

AntMurda said:
The jury is still out on this one. It sounds exactly like the "north west studio" description.
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I guess it's not completely clear, but it definitely seems like this being a Sony studio would be mentioned on the website or in the press release, so I'm gonna say it's not. If it is, then I think we've got our WipEout devs.
 
So there were two studios started in the English north west recently? This one and Sony's 'North West Studios'. Is that right?
 
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