Everything We Know About Dr Disrespect's New Game Studio
Dr. Disrespect has made a name for himself in the streaming community through his bombastic personality and his razor sharp gaming skills, but it's been clear for a while now that his biggest goal is to create something new for his fellow gamers. Ever since his abrupt departure from Twitch and switch to YouTube last year, people have been wondering what his next big move was going to be.
The streamer seemed to be struggling with the change at first, but now it seems he's found his groove and a renewed sense of purpose. Dr Disrespect teased back in August that he would be creating his own battle royale game. Fans couldn't get enough of the idea, but the question remained: How would he go about making such a thing? He could hardly do it all by himself. Battle royale games have been dominating the market for a while now, but big AAA titles require development studios consisting of dozens or even hundreds of employees in order to now make them, but keep them running smoothly.
It seems the Doc has found a way to make those dreams into reality. Experienced gaming devs have joined his cause and co-founded a new studio known as Midnight Society. Here's everything we know about it so far.
The founding of Midnight Society
Midnight Society was officially announced on Twitter on Dec. 14, 2021, along with a with a post welcoming fans to the new venture. The post also had a link to the studio's new website and a promotional video that prominently displayed the studio's name as the camera traveled through rain clouds over a city at night, regularly flashing to what appears to be concept art for its upcoming project new game.
There isn't a ton of information about the brand new studio's specific plans, but Midnight Society's website has already made some bold claims about what kind of studio it plans to be. The studio states, "We flip the tables on the traditional video game development model and embrace the 'Day Zero Community.' That means including our players – yes, you – from the earliest most inception ... Be there when your voice can actually make an impact because we want to hear it."
While pre-release Alpha and Beta testing for have been around for a while, it seems the Midnight Society is suggesting it will be taking feedback on the actual design process early on, which is a fairly unique development strategy.
Who is in the Midnight Society?
Several members of the Midnight Society team are listed on the studio's website. Of course, Dr Disrespect is placed at the front as one of the four co-founders. The other three co-founders are Robert Bowling, Quinn DelHoyo, and Summit Gupta, who all seem to be wearing multiple hats.
Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling has taken on the role of studio head. He has plenty of experience in game development from his work on the "Call of Duty" franchise as Infinity Ward's former creative strategist and community manager. He has worked in a similar capacity for companies such as EA and Respawn Entertainment. Quinn DelHoyo is a game designer known for his work with 343 Industries on the "Halo" franchise. Delhoyo serves as the studio's creative director, ensuring that the game design is in good hands. Summit Gupta is running the business side of things as the company's CEO. He is an angel investor and founder of Boom.tv, a website dedicated to producing and sharing esports content.
Rounding out the team are journalist and Boom.tv marketing manager HB Duran, 3D artist Eric Hallquist, and gameplay engineer Ryan Thomspon. Having so many people experienced with game development, personnel management, business and culture at the helm is bound to be invaluable to Midnight Society.
What kind of game is Midnight Society working on?
Well before the studio was officially announced, Dr Disrespect started dropping hints about plans for his own battle royale game that wouldn't be like anything else on the market. He hasn't released much concrete information on the game as a whole, but smaller pieces have come out over time.
He shared some concept art of the game during a livestream back in August. One image featured an industrial plant with several floors of scaffolding above a pit of molten metal, while another showed a person standing on a platform near the top of a smoking skyscraper that. Doc indicated at the time that his plan is to implement a vertical aspect to the battle royale formula. While most battle royale games feature an arena within a ring that gets progressively smaller, this new one would presumably require players to continue moving upward, forcing into tighter and more chaotic quarters. He revealed more new details about it during a stream on Nov. 27, 2021, during which he critiqued other popular battle royale titles and talked about how his development studio had noted where those games succeed and failed.
No word has come out about what stage of production the Midnight Society is currently in on any projects, but there's no denying that the company has some new and interesting ideas at play.