Chinese tech giant Tencent officially announced its new video game studio, Team Kaiju in North America. The studio is based in LA and Seattle, and some members have been working on a AAA first-person shooter game for over a year.
The new studio would have complete creative freedom, oversee its own projects, and be supported by Timi Studio Group, Tencent’s largest domestic video game development branch in China.
Kaiju is a word that originated from Japanese, meaning magnificent monsters, typically something like Godzilla. Head of the studio Scott Warner told GeekWire that the name reflects their ambition to create a blockbuster game with top-level quality.
Some concept art found on Team Kaiju's website
Many of the founding members of Team Kaiju are senior developers and artists with lots of AAA development experience, having worked on titles such as APEX Legends, Halo, Battlefield, Call of Duty, and the Uncharted series.
Some media claim Team Kaiju are the first “fully independent studio” founded by Tencent in North America, however, such a claim would not be entirely accurate. Back in 2008, Tencent established its Boston Studio and was rumored to be developing a AAA MMORPG targeted towards foreign markets.