Right on schedule, Swedish developer Avalanche Studios announced the official opening of its new New York City studio today, headed up by Activision and Atari veteran David Grijns. Avalanche, best known for its work on the Just Cause titles and this year’s downloadable Renegade Ops, says the NYC location has 10,000 square feet of space with “an option on an additional 3,000 square feet for future expansion.” That space will house “up to 50 new staff within the next 12 months,” including a “core team comprised of senior staff from Avalanche’s Stockholm headquarters.”

This is all in service of Project Mamba, the unannounced AAA title teased in June when the expansion plans were first revealed. While the initial announcement only pointed to “next-generation platforms” for the 2014 project, today’s announcement cites “console platforms and PC.”

“Today is a great day for Avalanche Studios as we have achieved yet another goal by establishing a new studio in the greatest city in North America. We are one of the few independent, AAA-budget studios remaining in the world after the disastrous economic recession of the last few years,” Avalanche Studios founder Christofer Sundberg said in a press release. “While this was a huge wake-up call for everyone in our industry, we have prepared for this expansion for over three years and it is a great feeling to execute our plans with such resounding success.”

With some of the most expensive real estate in North America, an increasingly competitive AAA video game industry, and a global recession with no end in sight, we’re not quite ready to call Avalanche’s new studio a “resounding success” just yet, but we wish them all the best regardless.

Continue reading Avalanche Studios opens NYC studio, working on ‘Project Mamba’ for 2014

JoystiqAvalanche Studios opens NYC studio, working on ‘Project Mamba’ for 2014 originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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