Epic Games may have lost Gears of War mastermind Cliff Bleszinski, but it just enlisted a big name from Microsoft to head its Unreal 4-focused development team.
Laura Fryer will take the general manager position at Epic Games Seattle. That West Coast studio will develop new game using Epic’s own cutting-edge Unreal 4 graphics engine.
“Laura Fryer is one of the brightest leaders of the game industry today, and we’re thrilled to have her guide our new Seattle studio,” Epic Games president Michael Capps said. “Laura was a key member of the Gears of War team, and we’ve long hoped to work with her again.”
In her time at Microsoft Game Studios, Laura Fryer acted as executive producer on Gears of War and Gears of War 2. Fryer was one of the first employees of Microsoft’s gaming initiative. In her time with that publisher, she helped bring developers from around the world to the Xbox platforms.
Epic Games is looking for more talent to join Fryer in Seattle. The company is hiring programmers and people with experience creating online game services.
Bleszinski, Epic Games’ former design director, left the company earlier this month after 20 years with the studio.