Official Crystal Dynamics Blog

Today at Crystal Dynamics, we're proud to announce our expansion with key new hires at our Redwood Shores headquarters and the creation of a new Bellevue, Washington satellite studio: Crystal Northwest™! “We’re aggressively scaling up our teams and adding a new studio with spectacular talent to deliver the ultimate gaming experiences for our players,” said Scot Amos, Co-Head of Studio at Crystal Dynamics. “We have assembled a team of industry veterans and leaders in order to create gaming experiences that surpass the expectations of our passionate community.” Our new studio in the Seattle area is officially up and running as of today, and is a full-fledged extension of Crystal Dynamics. Dedicated initially to technology development, it delivers even more expertise to the highly-anticipated Avengers Project. Led by 20-year industry veterans Chad Queen and James Loe, the new studio bolsters the development of future games, tools, and technology. In addition to the new studio, Crystal Dynamics has added best-in-class development talent to our Redwood Shores, CA headquarters. Among the dozens of new hires are world-class developers like Vincent Napoli, the new Lead Combat Designer at Crystal Dynamics who was most recently on the latest God of War, plus Ben Wanat, an 18-year industry veteran and an original co-founder of the Dead Space franchise, who led the development of Dead Space 3 as Creative Director. Joining them is David Fifield, who sports 20 years of experience as Executive Producer and Design Director at 343 Industries on Halo, as well as Game Director at Raven Software on numerous Call of Duty titles. We continue to attract the best and the brightest talent across all disciplines, many recently hailing from the likes of Naughty Dog, Pixar, EA, and many more. “Our new studio in Bellevue, and the new hires in Redwood Shores, represent our continued commitment to the most ambitious project we’ve ever created,” said Ron Rosenberg, Co-Head of Studio at Crystal Dynamics. “We’ll keep building on the exciting growth Crystal Dynamics has experienced over the last several years, and are eager to deliver a world-class Avengers experience for fans around the world.”

#FanartFriday - "Soul Reaver" by Bazuzu

Veterans from Naughty Dog, Visceral Games, Monolith, Sledgehammer Games, and More Assemble for The Avengers Project Development Team

Today at Crystal Dynamics, we’re proud to announce that we’re continuing to expand our award-winning studio by adding 15 top industry talent to our development team in January alone. Included in the group are former Naughty Dog Creative Director Shaun Escayg who joins The Avengers Project as Creative Director, and as Director of Production Stephen Barry, a 27 year Veteran from EA/Visceral Games.

Escayg served as the Creative Director and writer of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and led the cinematics team as the Director of Photography and Animation Supervisor on The Last of Us. In addition, he worked as an animator at Industrial Light & Magic. “I’m thrilled to join Crystal as Creative Director and be aligned with a team as passionate about telling great character based stories as I am.”

Barry held multiple positions at Electronic Arts and was formerly the Director of Product Development at Visceral Games, working on several games over his long career including the critically acclaimed Dead Space franchise. “Crystal’s been around almost as long as I’ve been in the business. The immediate chemistry and camaraderie has been exactly what I’d hoped for.”

“We’re committed to delivering an incredible, completely original Avengers experience to our gamers, and that means we are always looking to add amazing developers to our existing best in class studio talent,” said Scot Amos, Co-Head of Studio at Crystal Dynamics. “As development progresses, our studio continues to grow. The tremendous progress we’ve made on The Avengers project further drives us toward our goal of crafting something all Marvel fans will be proud of, and will play for years to come. We can’t wait to show you what we mean in the future.”

“We recently hired fifteen world-renowned industry veterans, spanning production leadership, animation, design, art and engineering, who have previously worked on games such as Batman: Arkham Origins, Dead Space, Star Wars: Battlefront and many more.” said Ron Rosenberg, Co-Head of Studio at Crystal Dynamics. “Their AAA experience adds to an already deep roster, making us well-positioned to deliver on the ambitious goals we’ve set for ourselves with The Avengers project. It’s a stellar addition of many people who fit incredibly well into our wheelhouse of building game experiences we all love.”

Crystal Dynamics has developed and published over 30 award-winning titles during its 25-year adventure. Some of the most beloved franchises include Gex®, Legacy of Kain® and most recently, TOMB RAIDER.

Happy Holidays from everyone at Crystal Dynamics!

Crystal Tidbit

We're extremely proud of Jonathan Hurtado, our Software Engineer, having completed nearly 40 GORUCK challenges!

I’ve done almost 40 GORUCK Challenges, which can range from 6 to 24 hours depending on the event.  I’ve completed a few Challenges back-to-back and even back-to-back-to-back (the longest was 79 hours including breaks).  On average, I have carried 40 pounds on my back, and have rucked in total over 500 miles (not counting the ones I’ve done in training).  The Challenges are team-based events and is what GORUCK is known for.  Selection deviates from that norm as it is an individual event.

On September 28th, 2017, I attempted the hardest endurance event in the world, GORUCK Selection. It’s a 48-hour endurance event based on the Army Special Forces Selection and Assessment test, and has earned its notorious moniker with an average pass rate of less than 5%. Each participant is required to bring a weighted rucksack (45 pounds without food and water) and pass a PT test (55 push-ups in 2 minutes, 65 sit-ups in 2 minutes, 5 mile run under 40 minutes, and 12-mile ruck march in under 3 hours and 30 minutes) before starting the event.

My goal was to finish Selection, but I unfortunately came up short as I quit 25 hours into the event. It was a humbling loss, and while I trained hard, it was apparent that my mental strength wasn’t as strong as I thought it was. I made it to the final two, which says something, and with some additional training, I’m confident that I’ll finish it next time. It was an excellent learning experience, and revealed some truths about myself that I wouldn’t have found otherwise.

The biggest takeaways from this experience is that if your ‘why’ for doing something is not strong enough, then it will not pull you from your weakest moments that will cause you to quit. The body will also lie to you in terms of your ability to do something when it’s pushed to a perceived limit, so you have to fight through that because you can always do more. And quitting can NEVER, EVER be an option. I learned that the hard way, but this experience will ensure that those lessons will be with me for the rest of my life.

Jonathan Hurtado Software Engineer Crystal Dynamics

Learn more at: news.goruck.com/event-news/selection-019-the-definitive-edition/

 Crystal Community Showcase: November 2017

The Crystal Community Showcase is a monthly art exhibit housed in a high-traffic area of our studio, highlighting some incredibly creative work from fans. The goal is to bring inspiration full circle by paying tribute to art inspired by Crystal Dynamics games.

Each month we will curate eight pieces featuring our past and present projects, across a variety of artistic mediums. Learn more about how to have your work considered for the showcase via our FAQ.

Check out our eight featured artists for the month of November below! Congrats to all the participants!

“Tomb Raider” | Steve Pickford | Pen & Promarker

“Tomb Raider” | Marc Rosete | Digital Art

"Kain, The Vampire" | Sebastian Riesco | Digital Art

"Raziel" | James Chung | Watercolor & Pen

"Lara Nouveau" | Michael Fitzhywel | Digital

“Unravel of the Tomb Raider" | Maor Hazon | Digital Art

"Razzie the Plushie" | Nero Fledermaus | Soft Sculpture

Thank you to everyone who participated and donated in our 25-hour, #CrystalD25 #ExtraLife marathon! We raised an incredible $10,532 for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.