Sony Staff Move to New Zenimax Online Team to Work on an Unannounced AAA IP

Zenimax Online has started assembling a team to begin development on a brand new unannounced AAA IP. The new satellite studio will be based in San Diego and is already attracting a range of development talent from other studios.

The news was revealed by Quentin Cobb, who has joined the team as Senior Designer. Cobb previously worked for Naughty Dog on The Last of Us and Uncharted 4, although he had moved across to Sony in recent years. His friend Ben Jones is the studio’s Creative Director and has been at Zenimax since 2018.

Cobb and Jones have been joined by four others to form the basis of the studio. The first of those is Alex Sulman who transfers from DICE. There he worked on an unannounced project in a brand new IP for three years, although he’s also worked on titles like Diablo III. His role in the studio isn’t yet known.

The remaining three members of the team are Principal Combat Designer John Bautista, Animator Chris Kovach and Principal Engineer TJ Madigan. All three have joined Zenimax from Sony. Both Kovach and Madigan previously worked on The Last of Us II. The studio is recruiting for new staff across the country. More than 40 positions are currently advertised for locations in Maryland, Austin, and San Diego.

There are no details about the IP yet as development will only be in its very early stages. However, Cobb states he is “easily the most excited I’ve ever been to work on a project since I joined the industry back in 2009“. The Zenimax Online website states they’re “hard at work on brand-new ZENIMAX ONLINE STUDIOS products across many different platforms“. The studio is most famous for The Elder Scrolls Online, although they also contributed to Fallout 76. They were recently purchased by Microsoft, although the latter has said they won’t necessarily make future projects Xbox exclusive.