Gearbox recruits 16 SMU Guildhall grads for VR project

Sixteen graduates from SMU Guildhall, Southern Methodist University’s game development focused graduate program, are headed to Gearbox to work on an unannounced VR title following their graduation this summer.

The student team of 16 notably created SMU Guildhall's first VR game, an HTC Vive title called Mouse Playhouse, in five months. That experience, coupled with Gearbox's longstanding relationship with Guildhall, prompted Gearbox head Randy Pitchford to custom-build a team to fit the soon-to-be graduates. 

“In this year’s graduating cohort, I am very excited that such an amazing group of talent has emerged from the program prepared to hit the ground running with research and development in Virtual Reality,” Pitchford told SMU. 

Mario Rodriguez, the producer behind SMU Guildhall's first VR title and one of the 16 joining Gearbox, previously detailed the team's experience creating Mouse Playhouse in a blog on Gamasutra. Rodriguez will be joined by artists Devanshu Bishnoi, Nina Davis, Taylor Gallagher, Taylor McCart, and Mace Mulleady; designers Michael Feffer, Alexandre Foures, Steve Kocher, Jacob Lavender, and Sam Pate; and programmers Taylor Bishop, Nicholas Dorbin, Benjamin D. Gibson, Clay Howell, and K. Komal Shashank.