Archetype Entertainment is an American video game development studio established as a division of game developer and publisher

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for ga ...

, itself a subsidiary of

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of ...

. The

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

-based studio was created by Wizards in April 2019 to develop new intellectual property outside of Wizards' existing ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...

'' and ''

Magic: The Gathering ''Magic: The Gathering'' (colloquially known as ''Magic'' or ''MTG'') is a Tabletop game, tabletop and Digital collectible card game, digital Collectible card game, collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards ...

'' franchises. Archetype is notable for having drawn talent from

BioWare BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1995 by newly graduated Doctor of Medicine, medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, and Marcel Zes ...

; Studio Head,

James Ohlen James Ohlen is a video game designer. He was Senior Creative Director of BioWare where he worked for 22 years prior to starting the publishing company Arcanum Worlds in 2018. In 2019, Ohlen became the lead of a new internal development studio Arc ...

, who had previously worked on Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games such as the Baldur's Gate series among other titles along with Chad Robertson and

Drew Karpyshyn Drew Karpyshyn (born July 28, 1971) is a Canadian video game scenario writer, scriptwriter and novelist. He served as a senior writer for BioWare's ''Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (video game), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'' and ...

History

Wizards had announced that it was establishing a new Austin studio with

as its lead on April 24, 2019. Ohlen, who had retired from

in 2018, had planned to distance himself from the video games industry. Ohlen had established a

tabletop role-playing game A tabletop role-playing game (typically abbreviated as TRPG or TTRPG), also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a form of role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech. Participa ...

publishing company, Arcanum Worlds, and had refused multiple lucrative offers from other video game companies for work. Ohlen changed his mind based on the offer that Wizards had given him, which included the necessary freedom to lead the studio the way he wanted, and a chance to return to the type of projects at BioWare that he felt were personal to him, like ''Baldur's Gate''. Wizards' president Chris Cocks said that Ohlen was the right person to help build up Wizards' IP profile beyond ''Dungeons & Dragons'' and ''Magic: The Gathering'' based his past work at BioWare. The studio had not been named, but both Ohlen and Cocks stated that the plan was to develop brand new IP in an "organic" manner to figure out the larger goals for the property, such as which platforms to develop for, and did not set any fixed milestones. Wizards revealed the name Archetype Entertainment in January 2020, along with news that another former BioWare member, Chad Robertson, had been brought on board as vice president and general manager. Wizards also affirmed that the first IP being developed by Archetype would be a science fiction role-playing game. A month later,

, yet another former BioWare member, came on board Archetype as lead writer. Karpyshyn said that while his interest in video game development waned as BioWare had changed over the years, "my passion has been rekindled. The feel in the studio reminds me of my early days at BioWare; I can feel the magic in the air."

References

External links

* {{BioWare American companies established in 2019 2019 establishments in Texas Hasbro subsidiaries Video game companies based in Texas Video game companies established in 2019 Video game development companies Wizards of the Coast Companies based in Austin, Texas