Paul Della Bitta, former global head of e-sports and community at Blizzard, Jungwon Hahn former head of Blizzard's Korean office, and Blaine Smith, who has a history in the Company of Heroes and God of War franchises, have come together to create Molten Games.
The new studio doesn't have any game announcements just yet, but it will be experimenting with the free-to-play model, and is committed to putting, "gameplay first and foremost."
The studio has already received a large investment from NCSoft, but it will not serve as a publisher of its games. Molten will own all of the rights to its original intellectual properties. NCSoft's investment awards the company assorted stock allocations.
You can find out more about the studio, you can check out its official website, as well the full press release announcing the studio and page two.
Our Take
It's hard to get too excited about a new studio that has no games to show. That being said, there is an impressive pedigree of video game industry veterans here who certainly have the capacity to do something cool. We'll just have to wait and see.