Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s awesome director opens an all-new studio

Stig Asmussen, the director of God of War 3 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, has formed his own game studio: Giant Skull.

Asmussen was the core behind Respawn Entertainment’s amazing Star Wars Jedi games, helping to introduce the world to Cal Kestis. Prior to that, the game director worked on God of War 3, but didn’t continue for the series’ prequel Ascension.

In a new announcement, the 51-year-old game designer revealed Giant Skull as a remote-working games studio with a headquarters in Los Angeles. The new studio will be working on a AAA action adventure game designed in Unreal Engine 5.

The new studio aims to create “gameplay-driven, story immersive action-adventure games set in captivating worlds.” Similar to Jedi: Survivor and God of War, the studio’s upcoming games will be huge AAA blockbuster experiences.

In a recently released press release, Asmussen explained the purpose of the new studio.

“The Giant Skull studio culture is focused on creativity and curiosity," Asmussen said. "We have assembled a talented team renowned for immersive storytelling, heroic combat, and exhilarating traversal, and our goal is to craft a rich universe that players will want to lose themselves in for years to come."

Asmussen’s pedigree is joined by other veteran devs including Jedi Survivor technical director Jon Carr, Fortnite art director Patrick Murphy and Jedi Survivor designer Jeff Magers.

In a time of mass layoffs in the video game industry, including almost 2,000 developers being cut from Xbox and 900 being axed from PlayStation alongside multiple studios, it’s heartening to see new opportunities arrive for game developers across the world.

While not much is known about the studio’s debut Unreal Engine 5 game, the website for the studio is now live. Giant Skull claims that fans can input an “endless amount of possible commands” to discover new secrets regarding the studio’s debut title.

Giant Skull has a huge pedigree of veteran developers working on its new game. However, it will take years until we see anything from the fledgling developer. After all, we still haven’t seen any gameplay of Perfect Dark - the first game from Xbox’s new studio The Initiative.