CCP, Remedy, Next Games alumni teamed up to launch Mainframe Industries. The new MMO Studio based in Iceland was founded to build MMO for cloud platforms only.
The team consists of 13 veteran game developers who have worked on well-known projects such as Eve Online, The Walking Dead: No Man's Land, and Alan Wake. They are Saku Lehtinen, Reynir Hardarson, Börkur Eiríksson, Kjartan Pierre Emilsson, Fridrik Haraldsson, Sulka Haro, Kristján Valur Jónsson, Jyrki Korpi-Anttila, Ansu Lönnberg, Eetu Martola, Vigfús Ómarsson, and Jón Helgi Thórarinsson. Thor Gunnarsson will serve as CEO.
"The creative and business opportunity that cloud gaming brings to social and immersive online games is unlike anything we've seen on the screens we play on today. We're incredibly excited to announce our air bridge across the Nordics, having assembled a founding team with the AAA, MMO and mobile pedigree needed to build the game we've been preparing for our whole lives," said Gunnarsson.
Image Credit: Mainframe Industries
"For Mainframe, the ability to deliver to all platforms a level of immersion and world simulation typically only seen in high-end PC games means that the visual gap between devices disappears as we move to the cloud. And we see tremendous potential in the expansive computing and storage capacity of the cloud. We can make bigger and better games with more complex physics simulation, AI, and character systems to deliver a fresh gaming experience unbounded by the constraints of individual platforms."
The team has also completed a seed funding round (€2 million) led by Maki.vc, Play Ventures, Crowberry Capital, and Sisu Game Ventures. Investors Harri Manninen, Hekla Arnardóttir, plus SisuGame Ventures co-founder Samuli Syvähuoko have joined the company's board.
You can check out the official website here.