Former Halo, Star Wars, Battlefield Veteran Joins Tencent's New LA Studio

Tencent's new Los Angeles studio has hired a big name to lead its studio. The TiMi Studios Twitter account announced that Scott Warner has come aboard to become its studio director.

Warner is an industry veteran who has worked on numerous high-profile projects such as the original Planescape: Torment, Halo 4, and Battlefield: Hardline, among other titles.

In his new studio director position, Warner will "help expand" TiMi's studio in Los Angeles, the developer said in a press release. TiMi is a gigantic company, employing more than 2,000 people worldwide, but this is the first time the company is setting up shop in North America.

The press release also mentions that Warner will lead the development of new games and new IP that will be released on multiple platforms. However, none of these projects have been announced.

TiMi Studios also developed the incredibly popular Call of Duty: Mobile through its studio in China.

"This is a tremendous opportunity to build something really special as TiMi has an exceptional pedigree and great ambition to create new games and new IP for global audiences," Warner said in the release. "We'll be assembling a team that's diverse, talented and aspirational enough to help TiMi achieve its goal as a truly global development team."

Warner got his start in games working with Black Isle Studios on the original Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale. He then joined Pandemic Studios where he was level designer on Mercenaries 1 and Mercenaries 2. After that, he went over to 343 Industries in the role of design director on Halo 4.

He then joined Electronic Arts where he served as game director on Battlefield Hardline and "various" Star Wars games that never came out, according to his LinkedIn page. After leaving EA, Warner joined Oculus VR as a design lead, before moving again to Ubisoft from 2018 until May 2020 where he was working on an unannounced game.