Ben Cousins’ mobile studio named Scattered

Ben Cousins has formed a mobile studio called Scattered Entertainment.

Cousins is known for his outspoken views on the death of games consoles, as well as his work on free-to-play games.

He was hired by publisher Ngmoco in June 2011 to head up its, then, unnamed Swedish studio. Scattered is the new name for that studio.

Prior to that, he made a shock departure from EA in March 2011. As general manager of EA Easy, he was instrumental in setting up EA’s free-to-play arm, starting with Battlefield Play4Free.

The studio is located in Stockholm, Sweden, and owned by mobile content company DeNA.

Scattered’s first title will be The Drowning, a console-quality, first-person-shooter custom-made for mobile devices. The game is set in a detailed 3D world and features a storyline intended to scare.

“Scattered Entertainment’s vision is to bring the type of deep, high-quality and immersive games normally only experienced on PC and consoles, to the convenient, powerful modern mobile device,” said Ben Cousins, general manager of Scattered Entertainment and head of DeNA’s European studio operations.

“The Drowning combines the play-patterns and touch-screen specific control systems expected of tablet and smartphone games with unmatched console-quality graphics, innovative skill-based gameplay and a rich, expansive fictional world.”

The game is experienced through the eyes of one of a handful of survivors of a mysterious global catastrophe. Players craft and upgrade weapons, working together or alone, to explore, survive and dominate a harsh apocalyptic world and the soulless creative that occupy it.

The free-to-play mobile game will be published on iOS devices in early 2013. See more about the game on its official website.