A team led by Destiny’s former creative director announced Tuesday that they are working on a new game under parent company ProbablyMonsters, the studio founded by former Bungie president and CEO Harold Ryan. That new development team is called Hidden Grove and is working on an original “multiplayer competitive adventure game” built on Unreal Engine 5.
Former Bungie creative director Chris Opdahl is general manager of Hidden Grove. Opdahl is joined by design directors Raylene Deck and Grant Mackay, who worked as senior design leads on Destiny. Hidden Grove also features talent who have worked on Halo, Destiny, Mass Effect, Dungeons & Dragons and other AAA gaming properties.
Developers from the Hidden Grove team haven’t added many details about what their unannounced game will be, but Opdahl hinted in an interview with Polygon that it will include Battle Royale elements. The team’s project is fully fleshed out, the developers said, and will enter a closed alpha sometime this summer.
Hidden Grove joins another internal team at ProbablyMonsters known as Battle Barge, which is developing a “next-gen co-op RPG game.” ProbablyMonsters was founded in 2016, after Ryan left Bungie.
To learn more about Hidden Grove’s new game and LikeMonsters’ mission “to change the way games are made,” Polygon chatted with Opdahl via email. Below you will find our conversation.
Polygon: What do you think makes Hidden Grove unique or different from teams you’ve worked with in the past?
Chris Opdahl: The Hidden Grove team shares a lot of DNA with the other teams I have worked with in the past; exceptionally talented people working together to create something that players care about and want to immerse themselves in. And we do that by finding a way to work together, resolve conflicts and push each other, while also celebrating our successes, all to make a great game and get our dates. I think the biggest difference is that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my career over the years. I’m hopeful that I’ve made enough mistakes leading teams that I’ve learned to get the mistakes out of my system, and this team can benefit from that important learning process.
In terms of uniqueness, the unique part of this team is both the amazing members and the way ProbablyMonsters works. You rarely work on something new that has all the benefits of real funding and a strong central team to help you. Here at ProbablyMonsters we get a lot of that and it’s an important part of our success.
Can you describe what a “competitive multiplayer adventure game” is? How does that compare to your work on Halo and Destiny?
One of our beliefs is that part of the Rattle Royale genre is that they are more adventurous than previous game modes. They moved away from the more sporting aspects of arena and tactical shooting games to something more freeform, something more adventurous. We think there’s an opportunity for something new and different than a Battle Royale by pushing even further into adventurous territory, which has opened up additional options for new types of teamwork and competition.
What was the incubation period of the project like? How did you know you had found the game you wanted to make?
When I first started, I had a few months before the first three members of the team started. I was nervous because I was too far ahead of what we had to create before that core team started. I wrote down twelve different game seeds, and shortly after I started, Raylene and Grant, our two design directors, looked through those seeds. They said they were excited about some of one game and some of the other, so we created a new seed that was a combination of both. We then wrote a user story (a text description) of how we thought the game would play when we were done. The current game is surprisingly consistent with the core experiences of what we wanted to start with.
Photo: Probably Monsters
The longer answer is that one of the biggest mistakes I made in my career was when I started a new project while the rest of the team was finishing the previous project and coming in strong. It took longer for people to join than originally planned and I ended up working on the creative and plans for the next version. When the previous version started to wrap up and some people joined the project, a lot of people were frustrated that I had already solved too much of the game without them. My conclusion is that I have to do the work necessary to understand it, but you don’t have to show all that to people when they start. Instead, turn that work into higher-level ideas and talk about those ideas, not their execution. Those higher-level ideas were the game seeds that we ultimately discussed and put together.
We knew we were on to something when the game we created matched the original plans and the team was cheering and excited during the playtests. The next big step is to put it to the players and see how they react.
How far are you in development? What can you tell us about the game at this stage?
Our production timeline is going well so far and we are planning an external user study with our Friends and Family Alpha later this summer. We’re excited to release the game to people who aren’t working on it directly so we can see how they react.
Presumably Monsters describes itself by saying it “aims to change the way games are made” – what does this mean to you? What are the practical implications?
When I started, I asked Harold (Ryan) “what does success look like for you in development?” I have a lot of friends who find it difficult to get their project through the process of getting the buy-in from all the decision makers in whatever company they are at or with. Harold said there are three ways he evaluates whether a project is going well. First, are the leadership and development teams excited about and believing in what they are creating? Making games is hard and that team will have to make a lot of tough choices during development. Being excited about what they create is the only way to effectively meet these challenges. Two – Is there a credible business case for the game? Creating the game also includes talking about who you think will play the game and whether there are enough of them to justify the cost of the game. Three – Do external playtesters give the game a high ‘recommend to a friend’ score? Recommending a game to a friend, especially a team game like the one we create, is one of the strongest indicators of a player’s interest in a game. It is important that you score sufficiently here. And while he never said it specifically, I also know there’s a fourth as well: Can your team consistently meet milestone dates and make progress toward shipping?
That’s different from what I’ve seen at other companies, where the usual way to make progress is to convince a large group of decision makers to justify the game you’re working on.
Games are becoming increasingly expensive to make. How do you manage costs and keep budgets under control?
Set credible milestone dates and then determine the content and effort put into each aspect of the game to achieve them. Fix the most important innovations in your game early, when the team is at its smallest. In my opinion, dating is one of the most important aspects of effective development, and working on meeting them early is critical. You won’t achieve every aspect of the game for every outcome, but you don’t want to miss so much that you’re at major risk to the next stage. This team really impressed me with how much they over delivered for all our major milestone gates.
Considering you’ve worked on your share of live-service multiplayer games, how do you see that space evolving?
One of the most challenging things in games is creating new genres. You usually see them initially starting through mods or from very small teams. In my experience, players tend to bond strongly with new genres which allows them to experience something new and stick with those games for a long time. After that genre has proven itself, publishers try to find new space within those genres to attach themselves to that market, with higher budgets and production values being the main drivers. That gets expensive. A company that can fund reasonable budgets to define and deliver new genres for players is likely to generate real long-term excitement among players. I’m curious who will ultimately do that.