Forza Horizon Dev's New Game Sounds Completely Different

Playground Games, the independent UK studio behind the Forza Horizon racing series, is starting a new project that sounds pretty much completely different. Playground has now confirmed that it is working on a AAA open-world action role-playing game.

Development on this project is being done out of a new 17,365 square-foot studio space that Playground recently purchased in Leamington Spa near its original studio. The game developer will refurbish the space and work out of its first two floors.

According to GI.biz, Playground hired Star Wars: Battlefront II senior producer Sean Eyestone to become the team's production director on the new game. Before DICE, Eyestone worked at Kojima Productions for more than five years, contributing to titles like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes.

Some of the other new hires at Playground include Will Kennedy (former designer for GTA V studio Rockstar North) and Juan Fernandez di Simon (senior designer on Ninja Theory's Hellblade). The developer's jobs site lists a number of other open positions for the open-world RPG, including creative director and narrative director.

According to GI.biz, Playground's new office will house more than 200 people who will work exclusively on the new RPG. This will bring the company's total headcount to more than 400, making it one of the bigger development studios in the UK and world.

Playground created the Forza Horizon series, which debuted in 2012 for Xbox 360. The studio also made 2014's Forza Horizon 2 and 2016's Forza Horizon 3. No release date has been set for Playground's new RPG, nor do we know anything about it.