Amazon Games Opens New Studio In Montreal With Rainbow Six Siege Vets

Amazon Games is opening a new game development studio based on Montreal, Canada, to focus on new AAA games. Its first project will be an original IP online multiplayer game. To that end, the studio is being headed up by industry veterans from the core team that created Rainbow Six Siege.

The studio leads are Luc Bouchard (head of production), Xavier Marquis (creative director), Alexandre Remy (head of product), and Romain Rimokh (content director). The Montreal studio joins the other Amazon Games studios in Seattle, Orange County, and San Diego. It's currently hiring for several game developer roles including software developers and artists.

"Building upon eight years of experience with Siege, we are excited to start with a blank page and the creative freedom to create a completely unique experience in the multiplayer space," Marquis said in the announcement. "From our first discussion, we felt a true connection with the people at Amazon Games, their approach to gaming and the sheer amount of knowledge, expertise and technology available there. It is quite humbling and we couldn’t be more excited to start a studio with them."

Amazon Games is part of the company's push into the lucrative video game market. Its flagship game, Crucible, shut down after only a few months. Its studios are still at work on the MMO New World coming in August, and a Lord of the Rings MMO. The studio announcement also mentions several unannounced projects in development.

The company has also embraced its own game streaming service, Amazon Luna, though the head of the project recently left to join Unity. Luna is going head to head against competing ones like Google Stadia and Microsoft's xCloud, which is offered as part of a Game Pass subscription. Whereas Google is a la carte and xCloud is a single subscription lineup, Luna offers various channels with different gaming packages. Stadia recently shut down its internal development studios.