Former Destiny leads have a new studio and a new game

polygon.com:

A team led by the former creative director on Destiny announced Tuesday that they’re 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 named Hidden Grove, and is working on an original “multiplayer competitive adventure game” built on Unreal Engine 5.

Former Bungie creative director Chris Opdahl is serving as general manager of Hidden Grove. Opdahl is joined by design directors Raylene Deck and Grant Mackay, who worked on Destiny as senior design leads. Hidden Grove also includes talent that has worked on Halo, Destiny, Mass Effect, Dungeons & Dragons, and other AAA gaming properties.

Developers on the Hidden Grove team didn’t add much detail about what their unannounced game will be, but Opdahl hinted in an interview with Polygon that it will have battle royale elements. The team’s project has been fully incubated, developers said, and will go into 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 ProbablyMonsters’ mission “to change the way games are made,” Polygon chatted with Opdahl via email. You can find our conversation below.

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 make something that players care about and want to dive into. And we do that by finding a way to work together, resolve conflict, and push each other while also celebrating our successes, all to make an awesome game and hitting our dates. I think the biggest difference is that I have made many mistakes in my career over the years. I’m