New studio Traega Entertainment settles in Nashville

New indie studio Traega Entertainment has announced on Wednesday that it has set in shop in Nashville, Tennessee and will be releasing its first project in 2018.

A new studio setting up isn’t always newsworthy, but there’s some real talent behind it. Founder Dax Hock has limited experience, working in QA for several years at Funcom, but his team has some impressive credits to their name. Senior programmer David Ollman worked on Ashes of Empire and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks while director of technology Martin Livesey has worked on Company of Heroes 2 and Star Wars: Rebellion. Meanwhile, head of marketing and business development Michael Micholic has worked on various brand management roles at Ubisoft, with work on Far Cry, Prince of Persia and Rayman.

The team at Traega are hoping to push out their first game next year, an as yet unnamed tactical RPG with card collecting mechanics.

"Traega was created to build quality games with depth and a lot of freedom," Hock said. "I love to be challenged and to have the choice to play the way I want. These values will be at the core of everything we create, even with smaller scale games, like the one we are building now."

"I want to foster a culture of collaboration," Hock said. "Despite our individual roles, each of us have a hand in influencing all aspects of the game. My goal is to create something that we all want to play, something that we can all be proud of."