Frost Giant Studios Is Another New Team Formed by Ex-Blizzard Employees

Support for StarCraft 2 might be entering its twilight phase, but real-time strategy fans may have a new studio to look to for the genre's future. Frost Giant Studios, a new team co-founded by ex-Blizzard employees Tim Morten and Tim Campbell, was officially revealed today, and its first project will be an RTS that Morten hopes can become "a worthy successor" to series like StarCraft and Command and Conquer.

As reported by our friends at GamesIndustry.biz, Morten and Campbell raised $4.7 million in seed funding to create Frost Giant. Esports-focused venture capital firm Bitkraft led the funding round, but Riot Games is also on the short list of funding participants.

The two Tims are alumni from different periods in Blizzard's history. Morten was production lead on StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void and, prior to joining Blizzard, earned his initial RTS merits through working on Command and Conquer at Electronic Arts. Campbell led campaign design for WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne and has since worked at a number of studios, most recently inXile as Game Director on Wasteland 3. Creating the studio's first title "will take time," says Morten, but he and Campbell are "incredibly excited and grateful to carry real-time strategy forward at Frost Giant Studios." Morten also mentions that Frost Giant has ambitions to make their debut one that RTS fans "can share broadly with friends[.]"

Frost Giant's reveal comes just short of a month after the introduction of Dreamhaven. Spearheaded by Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime, Dreamhaven will serve as the publisher for two new teams led by other former Blizzard employees, Moonshot and Secret Door. After Morhaime's exit in 2019, Kotaku reported that three of the devs joining him at Dreamhaven teams (Dustin Browder, Eric Dodds, and Jason Chayes) all left Blizzard following the cancellation of its StarCraft FPS project codenamed "Ares."

It was soon after the end of "Ares" that another Blizzard co-founder, Frank Pierce, made his exit from the company. Blizzard's talent drain was just one struggle it faced last year, with the hundreds of layoffs in February and the Hearthstone protest suspension controversy last October bookending a rocky year for the company.

This year has also seen Blizzard facing new difficulties and internal criticism. The launch of Warcraft 3: Reforged went poorly, a company-wide pay dispute made headlines in the summer, and this month saw the close of Blizzard's longtime support studio (now an Activision Blizzard team) in Versailles, France. With Overwatch 2, a Rod Fergusson-helmed Diablo 4, and a delayed launch of WoW: Shadowlands on the horizon, Blizzard has a few opportunities down the road to impress fans with new releases, but with the reveal of Frost Giant, there's now yet another team with Blizzard-honed talent to keep an eye on.