Former Firaxis art director Greg Foertsch unveils new studio, Bit Reactor

gamesindustry.biz:

Danielle Partis

News Editor

Wednesday 19th January 2022

Upon entering the new millennium, strategy games started to struggle on consoles. Titles like Age of Empires, Civilisation, and XCOM lead the charge on PC, but struggles with adapting its UI for televisions meant that the genre began to get left behind as the Xbox and PlayStation markets began to swell.

Now, the strategy genre doesn't have to be restricted by the technological limitations of the past. Top down games can have stunning worlds that can stand against the latest open world escapades, or a narrative to rival the next great RPG.

Greg Foertsch

Former Firaxis art director Greg Foertsch hopes to be at the forefront of the strategy resurgence with his new studio, Bit Reactor. Drawing other talent from the XCOM developer as well as other teams, Foertsch aims to build an outfit -- and later, a game -- that will bring the genre into a new era.

"The whole genre started to fall backwards while not having enough production values and it got dropped a bit," Foertsch tells GamesIndustry.biz. "Now, that's not a problem. Screen resolution isn't an issue. There are ways to tell stories and convey information that doesn't require a wall of text.

"That's what we're focused on -- bringing that to the genre, and really blurring that line between what a strategy game is and what an action game is."

Foertsch spent more than 20 years with Firaxis in various roles, before departing in 2018. After that, he had a small stint at Romero Games, which at the time was building strategy title Empire of Sin. For Foertsch, journeying from a long stint at a larger developer to a smaller one, to starting up his own studio, is all about setting his own parameters when it comes to developing a new