Stockholm-based
Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios announced on Tuesday the founding of a new development studio focused on online and casual games, dubbed Expansive Worlds.
The first game under the Expansive Worlds division is
theHunter, a free-to-play browser-launched hunting game that Avalanche
acquired from Emote Games earlier this year. Expansive Worlds is also based in Stockholm, Sweden.
A press statement from Avalanche said Expansive Worlds will have a "strong focus on community-driven subscription-based titles," while parent Avalanche will continue work on PC and console games. Avalanche launched the action game
Just Cause 2 this week.
Leading the new studio is managing director Stefan Pettersson, who recently was a senior consultant at Netlight Consulting AB.
Avalanche co-founder and creative director Christofer Sundberg said, "Expansive Worlds plays a very important part in our long-term strategy in creating and owning innovative intellectual properties."
Avalanche co-founder and CTO Linus Blomberg added that Expansive Worlds will utilize the Avalanche Engine, which is also used in the triple-A PC and console game
Just Cause 2. "When used in this context [free-to-play online] the engine [will] provide for exciting opportunities to create experiences not normally associated with that market segment," Blomberg said.
