Electronic Arts is opening a new office in the Seattle area, with former V1 Interactive head and Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto as its game director.
The new studio is working on “first-person games,” according to a tweet from Lehto, who will reportedly be working under EA’s Vince Zampella, the head of Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment.
Lehto was the art director at Bungie Studios from 1997 to 2012, where he helped to design many of the characters and vehicles that would go on to become a mainstay of the series, including its protagonist the Master Chief. Lehto’s initials and birthday can both be found as Easter eggs on various in-game models in the original 2001 Halo: Combat Evolved.
Hey everyone, I’m very excited to announce that I’ve joined @EA as a Game Director, building a new studio in the Seattle area working on first-person games. I can’t wait to share more about what we’re creating! pic.twitter.com/GnfVFNLSaW
— Marcus Lehto (@game_fabricator) October 19, 2021
More recently, Lehto was the studio head at V1 Interactive in Redmond, Wash., which developed the 2020 tactical shooter Disintegration. V1 Interactive closed down in March.
This is the second new office Electronic Arts has opened in the Seattle area in 2021. In May, it quietly tapped former Monolith VPs Kevin Stephens and Samantha Ryan to head up an unnamed studio, with plans to create an open-world action-adventure game. EA previously had a satellite office in Seattle, which primarily worked on the Need for Speed racing franchise before closing in 2002.
Electronic Arts, founded in 1982, might be best known by its initials. It’s currently the second largest third-party developer in the modern video game industry, behind Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard, with multiple successful franchises that include The Sims, Star Wars, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Titanfall, and the annually-updated Madden and FIFA sports simulators.
As Lehto alluded to in September, EA is a mildly controversial figure in the modern games industry. It was one of the first studios to be hit with complaints of “crunch culture,” as part of the anonymous ea_spouse complaints in 2004; it’s notorious for acquiring independent studios, then running them into the ground; and it was one of the biggest companies involved in the issues that surrounded “lootboxes” in 2019. It also makes and markets some of the most popular games in the world, however, and usually has at least two best-sellers in any given year’s top 10 list.
EA is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., with North American subsidiaries in Orlando, Vancouver, Baton Rouge, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. It also owns the casual-gaming company PopCap, the Plants vs. Zombies maker founded in Seattle and acquired by EA in 2011. PopCap has offices in Seattle, Vancouver, and Hyderabad, India.
