Here’s to new ideas: Moon Beast Productions is an independent studio founded by industry veterans Phil Shenk, Peter Hu, and Erich Schaefer to make a new action RPG. Having secured funding, the company now plans to explore a novel approach to the hack-n-slash genre.
Moon Beast Productions recently secured $4.5 million in seed money from several partners in the gaming industry. The company hopes to use the funding to design and develop a groundbreaking ARPG that goes beyond the genre’s traditional design templates. $4.5 million is a fairly tight budget, but Moon Beast President Peter Hu notes that the team plans to work “smarter” and not just harder to achieve its goals.
Moon Beast CEO Phil Shenk highlighted how the company’s founders helped invent the classic ARPG paradigm with Diablo and Diablo II. They also worked on subsequent projects such as Hellgate: London, the excellent Torchlight series, and Marvel Heroes Online, each aiming to expand the genre’s reach.
“For the past 20 years, we’ve dreamed of ARPG gameplay in more open, dynamic worlds,” said Moon Beast’s chief creative director, Erich Schaefer.
Schaefer was one of the original crew members for Diablo II, arguably the best ARPG ever. He noted that Moon Beast is now ready to start its next project. He didn’t divulge too much but said they are returning to what made early Diablo games so unique and addicting, adding that the studio is taking those ideas in new, “fresh” directions.
Team members and their previous projects. Click to enlarge.
Moon Beast’s team has the technology skills and decades of design experience to elevate their game above those of bigger developers. The team’s vision lacks a lot of meat, so there are very few details about this new, mysterious ARPG. He said that a “key innovation” the studio wants to invest in is user-generated content (UGC), with dedicated tools that make adding custom content to the game’s world virtually effortless.
“We’re building in-game tools that allow players to not just mod but potentially create entirely new game modes using our robust, client-server ARPG systems,” Hu said.
According to Overwolf, one of Moon Beast’s angel investors, the company’s approach to UGC could incite entirely new gameplay experiences than the base game.
Shenk stated that Moon Beast’s UGC tools could unlock new genres built on the traditional ARPG formula, similar to how the MOBA genre emerged from Warcraft III mods. So far, the company has been busy building its core technology platform and experimenting with ARPG-related design ideas. The team isn’t interested in making a Diablo clone. We can’t wait to see what the original Diablo designers come up with outside Activision Blizzard’s reach.
