The Avalanche Studios Group has today announced that they are expanding to the UK, and will be opening a new location in Liverpool.
A core team of five developers will be starting work in June, and the studio will immediately begin recruitment to fill an additional 20 positions. The team is expected to grow to over 50 within the next two years.
This marks the fourth location for the company, joining their studios in Stockholm, New York City and Malmö.
Speaking to MCV/DEVELOP, Avalanche CEO Pim Holfve remarked:
“Liverpool’s thriving gaming development scene is really appealing to us as Avalanche Studios Group grows through the shared experience and influences of existing and new game developers. We’re constantly on the lookout for developers with skill sets that can push us forward as a company, and we found a great founding team of such developers in Liverpool who shares our values and the way we work.
“Finding the right people is essential for us. Previously we’ve been aiming to get developers to move to our current locations. However, as the industry matures, we have seen that the willingness to relocate among more senior developers is declining as they are settling down. We’ve also identified great benefits that come from additional locations where new people with different experiences and cultural backgrounds contribute to our joint culture and shared knowledge base. New people and influences have a proven positive effect on us as a company and the games we make.”
The Liverpool team will initially collaborate with the other locations on the development of current and future IPs from Expansive Worlds, a creative division of Avalanche Studios Group.
“Over time,” Holfve continued, “our aim is to have teams in Liverpool working on both Avalanche Studios’ and Systemic Reaction’s games as well. Our strategy is to build up a new location around one project and expand from there.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and following Government guidelines, all Liverpool employees will initially join and work remotely until a physical office can be established.
“Our employees health and safety’ is our top priority,” said Holfve. “We are working hard to create a sustainable way for all our employees to work from home and maintain a sound work-life balance during these difficult times.
“It’s always a lot of work to set up a new location, and the current situation comes with its own challenges. As we have been working from home over the past months, we’re constantly iterating to how we can improve the way we work together during these difficult times.
“In our established locations, we’ve been onboarding new team members from across the globe, and we see this as a similar situation, but also anticipate that we will come with its own challenges as well. Since we have our initial Liverpool team ready to start the coming weeks, we feel confident that this will go well and as soon as we possibly can we will open a physical location.”
The full list of job openings at the Liverpool location can be found here.
