Former World of Warcraft frontman Rob Pardo has established Bonfire Studios to "help friends connect through games."

The studio was brought to life with the help of partners Riot Games and venture capital outfit Andreessen Horowitz, who together handed the fledgling outfit $25 million in funding.

In a Medium blog post, Pardo says he doesn't want Bonfire to be a studio that asks developers to choose between creating big budget titles and personal indie experiences -- he wants to create games that blend the best of both worlds. 

The Bonfire team already features an impressive list of names, including former Diablo III creative director Josh Mosqueira, fellow Blizzard alumnus Nick Carpenter, ex Battle.net director Matthew Versluys, and former Nexon America CEO Min Kim.

"To ensure our developers have a big impact we are organizing them into small but powerful and diverse superhero teams, like the Avengers," explained Pardo. 

"We believe you can create epic games with small teams of talented, self-driven game developers, where each team is deeply connected to their players and empowered to make the best decisions to evolve their game without bureaucracies, committees or middle management in their way."