Blizzard expats unite to form new indie outfit Frostkeep Studios

After roughly a year of quiet preparation, the folks at Irvine-based Frostkeep Studios made their presence known this week by announcing their debut project: the "hybrid fantasy survival game" Rend.

Frostkeep is an independent studio initially founded last April by three former Blizzard devs (Jeremy Wood, Solomon Lee, and Mat Milizia) who met while working on the original World of Warcraft.

Some of them later went to work on League of Legends at Riot, and now they've made a public show of opening Frostkeep alongside some other devs who have worked on games like WildStar and Wasteland 2.

Going forward, Frostkeep plans to launch Rend on Steam's Early Access service this spring, and pitches the project as as a multiplayer faction-based game with RPG and crafting elements.