Eight former World of Warcraft devs start new studio Notorious to create multiplayer RPG

Notorious is a new studio made up of former Blizzard Entertainment employees. It is named after the World of Warcraft guild that these developers used to be a part of. The team is now working on its first project.

The studio is co-founded by Chris Kaleiki, experienced game designer who created the Monk class for World of Warcraft, and Doug Frazer, former senior gameplay engineer on WoW.

Notorious has already received help from Riot Games and Galaxy Interactive, which invested $5 million in the new studio.

The team is also optimistic about avoiding mistakes that led to the current situation at Blizzard. As Kaleiki told GamesBeat, Notorious has no tolerance for harassment and has a flatter structure. It means that the studio has no leads or directors.

“We aspire to have that flatter structure where we don’t have a rigid hierarchy,” Kaleiki said. “Harassment usually comes from a subordinate-superior sort of relationship. We’re hoping that a flatter structure can address some of those problems.”

Notorious is now working on a multiplayer RPG, although it doesn’t call it an MMO game. According to Kaleiki, the team is good at building worlds, so it will be its main focus.