This has been an exciting week for NCsoft®! On the heels of the major new release of Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa®, we are happy to announce the full acquisition of the City of Heroes intellectual property (IP) and formation of a new studio in northern California dedicated to the ongoing development of the City of Heroes Franchise! This is the first step in a major reinvestment back into City of Heroes and City of Villains®. Over the coming years, we plan to aggressively develop and expand the franchise. I’m sure this raises questions about what this means for our awesome community of players and what the future means for their favorite heroes and villains. Rest assured, the future is indeed bright!

While we’ve acquired the full rights to the City of Heroes IP, we’ve also brought on board the solid core team of developers from Cryptic Studios: Matt “Positron” Miller (lead designer), Aaron Brady (lead engineer), and Ken Morse (lead artist). The management of City of Heroes will transition fully to NCsoft. I will still be the executive producer, my production team along with Ross Borden the director of business and marketing will also remain. We’ve been with the game since the early days and are committed to its long term success. Our community team, which has always been part of NCsoft, will also continue to be an integral part of the new studio. In the coming months we’ll be looking to add literally dozens more employees. We’ll have a full-fledged development studio to achieve our goals and we’ll be undergoing substantial, but careful, growth to get there.

I’m sure that you’re also asking, “What will happen to City of Heroes?” In the short term, you’ll see our major content expansions, the Issues, continue. Issue #11 is due out shortly and plans for Issue #12 and beyond are already underway. The recent twelve months have been great for the game and if you aren’t familiar with all the changes that have been introduced, follow the links below to read about how the game has evolved:

We don’t expect the transition to the new studio to make a noticeable dent in our free Issue scheduling. As a player you shouldn’t see any ill-effects of this transition from a development or customer support perspective. In fact, you should see a significant positive impact on your game experience within the few months and beyond. Cryptic Studios is giving us all of the support we’ve asked for and has been tremendously helpful in this transitional process. All parties involved want what’s best for the franchise.

At this time, we’re not quite ready to disclose longer term plans. We’ll have the usual slate of announcements when we’re ready to reveal our plans. But, what I can say is that we’re building this new studio not just to maintain the status quo. We’re looking beyond the normal slate of free Issues for City of Heroes. We want to use City of Heroes as a focal point and really build on this franchise. We absolutely value the City of Heroes IP with its unique focus on the superhero genre, we’re really thrilled at the opportunities that full ownership brings to the table, and we can’t wait for the “City of” community to see all that we have in store for them. Now is the right time to get started on the next chapter!

Brian Clayton, City of Heroes executive producer and NCsoft NorCal Studio general manager

Brian Clayton is a veteran game developer with over fifteen years of management experience specializing in online game development. He has produced over ten titles (thirty SKUs) for the PC, console and handheld formats. Brian has built and managed several teams for companies such as Accolade, 3DO, and NCsoft in the following disciplines: product development, network operations, QA, community relations, and technical support.

In his current role as executive producer and general manager of NCsoft NorCal, Brian oversees the development and business initiatives for the awarding winning City of Heroes and City of Villains MMORPGs.