New dawn

Halo Infinite’s former creative director on how he’s getting the band back together

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Supergroups can be risky propositions. Whether in music or in games, it’s easy to think of examples of people who’ve done great work in the past forming groups that add up to less than the sum of their parts. But for Tim Longo (pictured), CEO of Twin Suns Corp, it’s not so much the projects the members of his new Seattle-based studio have worked on that are important (though it’s certainly a fine list, encompassing Halo, Tomb Raider, Hitman and Gears Of War) but the fact that they’ve worked on them together. “I use this silly phrase of ‘getting the band back together,’” he tells us, “but it really does feel that way.”

Longo describes himself as the “common denominator” of the team. Before his time at 343 Industries, where he served as creative director on Halo Infinite until his departure in 2019, he had worked with fellow co-founders Jeff Morris on a cancelled Star Wars project (a casualty of LucasArts’ closure following the Disney acquisition) and Forest Swartout Large at Crystal Dynamics. The rest of the staff (15 have been hired so far, of a projected 20) come from similar backgrounds, we’re told. Longo isn’t ready to share names yet, but promises “a lot of ex-LucasArts folks, Crystal Dynamics, 343… We basically just looked back through our careers over the past 25 years or more, and asked, ‘Who do I want to work with again?’”