Disney open to working with indie developers on games based on its franchises

During its E3 showcase, Microsoft revealed that a new expansion for Sea of Thieves will be based on the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. And it looks like Disney also has plans to collaborate with other developers on bringing more of its IPs to video games.

Walt Disney Games senior vice president Sean Shoptaw told IGN that the company wants to work with the “best” developers. It means not only big companies that make AAA games but also indie studios.

“So if they’re strong indie that has a real passion and a vision for a story of ours, or a character of ours, or anything in our universe, we are all ears,” he said. “I think that you’ll see stuff coming out over time here that really will back that up. So yeah, it’s not just about the big guys. The big guys, those are really important partners of ours, as I noted. But we’re hoping to work with a broad set of partners across the world.”

Shoptaw went on to say that indie games are usually more personal, and that’s why sometimes they might tell certain stories better than AAA titles. Disney sees new opportunities in this field, so it’s all about developers who have ideas for games that haven’t been implemented yet.

Talking about upcoming games based on Disney’s IPs, Massive Entertainment is now working on an open-world action in the Star Wars universe, and Ubisoft is expected to release Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora in 2022.