NetEase Games, best known for publishing battle royale title Naraka: Bladepoint, has officially announced via Twitter that they’ve introduced a new studio, Worlds Untold, headed by Mass Effect veteran Mac Walters:
The full announcement blog goes into further detail about the studio, which will be fully remote and based in Vancouver, Canada. It was built to create completely new IPs, so they likely won’t add new titles to existing series like Naraka.
In addition to Walters, the team is composed of other veterans who worked on a variety of hit games. Some examples include Halo, The Sims, and Dragon Age.
The studio appears to place an emphasis on the action-adventure genre. Most notably, today’s blog also discusses the debut game. It’s described as “a near future, action-adventure game in a breathtaking world filled with mystery and exploration”.
This sounds a bit similar to Mass Effect, which has been troubled by the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf delays and may not get a new installment until sometime in 2029.
However, Mass Effect remains a flagship series with plenty of fans, thanks to its innovation and memorable characters. Its notoriety is sure to earn goodwill for Worlds Untold.
Surprisingly, games developed by Worlds Untold won’t be limited to “a single game, or even a single medium”. This implies that they’re planning out an extensive series for multiple IPs, and other adaptations.
That could be referring to novel tie-ins, since Mac Walters has penned such Mass Effect materials before. Fans largely responded well to his work, and it’s an effective worldbuilding tool.
However, the team could also be aiming for potential film and television adaptations. It would take a strong, expansive foundation for that kind of expansion. But video game adaptations have been improving quite a lot, lately.
For more on the Mass Effect series, you can read our story about BioWare’s recent new teasers.
