On Thursday, developer Deviation Games announced the sudden departure of its co-founder Jason Blundell. “We appreciate the contributions Jason has made, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors,” wrote Deviation on Twitter.
Blundell and Dave Anthony founded Deviation last year, and the studio is working on an original game with Sony Interactive Entertainment. Both men teased their debut game as “something fresh and brimming with innovation like you’ve never experienced before.”
Both Blundell and Anthony previously worked at Call of Duty Black Ops developer Treyarch. Blundell was the head of the franchise’s Zombies mode for 13 years until he left Treyarch in 2020. His final game at the developer was 2018’s Call of Duty Black Ops IV.
With Blundell gone, Anthony (who serves as Deviation’s CEO) has assumed the role of game director, and is said to be “a guiding force as we look ahead.”
In addition to losing its co-founder, Deviation took the time to announce notable new hires. The biggest is Louis Castle as its senior vice president of development. Castle co-founded Westwood Studios, the original developers of Command & Conquer. More recently, he served as the creative director on 2016’s War Commander: Rogue Assault from Kixeye.
Further hires include Dean Rymer and Jonathan Hawkins, who both worked on the God of War franchise, and Call of Duty developer Tony Flame.
Blundell isn’t the first co-founder to leave their Sony-backed studio. Earlier this year, Sebastien Puel left Haven Studios, the studio he co-founded in 2021 with ex-Google Stadia head Jade Raymond. At that point, the studio hadn’t been open for a full year.