Rare grabs serious talent from UK studios

Rare has performed a major coup to bolster star talent at the company, appointing a quartet of high-profile development professionals from across the UK.

Jon Vincent, Andrew Dennison, Peter Ridgway and Danny Isaac have each been given senior roles at the Kinect Sports developer.

Isaac, most recently studio manager at Relentless Software, has been appointed executive producer.

Vincent, a widely respected audio director at Ubisoft Reflections, joins Rare to work in the same capacity. He is the latest high-profile employee to depart Ubisoft Reflections, following the recent resignation of studio manager Gareth Edmondson.

Dennison, who was a lead programmer at Codemasters for more than a decade, has been appointed software director. Ridgway, who also worked at Codemasters on ‘future art technology’, joins as technical art director.

The star grabs come after Rare embarked on a jobs advertising campaign with Develop. It is understood that the firm is preparing a new hiring spree.

“Everyone at Rare welcomes the skills and input of some of the industry’s most exciting people as we boost an already strong talent base with these latest hires,” said Rare’s senior studio director Craig Duncan.

“We have big ambitions here at the studio, and industry professionals such as Andrew, Jon, Danny and Peter will help ensure we fulfil them. This is the latest step in Rare’s continued evolution and we have plans to further augment our team over the coming months.

“As a first party Microsoft studio, our mission is to attract the brightest and best talent in the business; these four appointments demonstrate that we are well on our way to achieving this.”