God of War producer joins Microsoft's The Initiative studio

By Asher Madan
published

The Initiative has quite the team.

God of War

God of War (Image credit: Sony)

Today, Darrell Gallagher, the Studio Head of The Initiative, revealed that acclaimed developers like Brian Westergaard (opens in new tab), Annie Lohr, Blake Fischer, Christian Cantamessa, Daniel Neuburger, and Lindsey McQueeney were now a part of the team. Microsoft founded The Initiative this year so that they could build quality Microsoft exclusives like God of War or Uncharted. It seems like the company has the team to do just that because individuals like Westergaard have worked on such games. Westergaard was previously the Senior Managing Producer for Narrative and Animation on God of War at Sony's Santa Monica Studio. He's also worked on Rise of the Tomb Raider in the past.

It's great to see Microsoft hire such individuals. Hopefully this will address the concerns many gamers had that Microsoft wasn't producing enough quality first-party exclusives which rivaled those found on the competition. Games like God of War, Spider-Man, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Horizon Zero Dawn garner a lot of press attention and this is noticed by many gamers who own an Xbox One. Not everyone has the means to purchase all the consoles in order to play all of these games. People crave comparable games on the platform they own.

We'll keep you posted as soon as we know more about what The Initiative is working on. Hopefully the title will be an open-world game which pushes the boundaries of storytelling.

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Asher Madan
Asher Madan

Asher Madan handles gaming news for Windows Central. Before joining Windows Central in 2017, Asher worked for a number of different gaming outlets. He has a background in medical science and is passionate about all forms of entertainment, cooking, and antiquing.

12 Comments
  • That's excellent news! I can't wait to take advantage of this within 3-5 years, hehe.
  • God of Gears of War
  • The Initiative isn't working on Gears of War.
  • I love this agressive approach to "fix" the demand for more 1st party games. Can't wait to see who will be joining next.
  • I bet we're going to hear about more studio acquisitions soon.
  • Like Obsidian?
  • Those are the rumors but who knows at this point. I do know that the whole "we're just getting started" with studio acquisitions is real and that an Xbox executive actually said that. If not Obsidian, there will definitely be others.
  • That Sony fanboy troll will still find something to complain about.
  • Yep, bout time?! Thanks Satya
  • Ooh, this makes me more xcited to own an xbox one and really cementing the need to buy a xbox one x sometime soon. Damn those pesky bills...always money hungry lol. I'm liking the direction xbox is going, it's definitely resonating with the younger crowd. The backwards compatibility was a master stroke, as it means with the one x we can play 3 generations of games - the OG xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox one games. That is fueling many sales and providing xbox 360 games with a new lease of life and new fans. Embracing cross platform play has given them a boost in sales as well, Sony has no choice but to accept in allowing cross platform play as their persistance in not doing so is costing them sales.
  • "Embracing cross platform play has given them a boost in sales as well, Sony has no choice but to accept in allowing cross platform play as their persistance in not doing so is costing them sales."
    Do you have proof of that? I mean sales charts or whatever? Do you have proof that people buy platforms for console crossplay?
  • The irony of crossplay is that if you look at discussion surrounding Gears of War 4 crossplay almost everybody hates it, and console gamers turn it off. Kind of the opposite of what you are saying there.