Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto will lead new EA studio

The new Seattle studio will be working on first-person games

Electronic Arts is spinning up a new studio in Seattle, and a notable industry figure will be heading it up. Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto will be leading the currently unnamed EA Seattle location.

Lehto is a former creative and art director at Bungie, where he’s credited as one of the co-creators of Halo. Most recently, Lehto was president and game director at V1 Interactive, the developer of Disintegration. V1 Interactive closed down earlier this year, after shuttering the Disintegration servers.

In a tweet, Lehto said the EA studio will be working on “first-person games,” and that he can’t wait to share more about what they’re creating.

Hey everyone, I’m very excited to announce that I’ve joined @EA as a Game Director, building a new studio in the Seattle area working on first-person games. I can’t wait to share more about what we’re creating! pic.twitter.com/GnfVFNLSaW

— Marcus Lehto (@game_fabricator) October 19, 2021

EA also opened another studio in Seattle earlier this year, under former Monolith head Kevin Stephens. That studio is working on an open-world action-adventure game, which tracks given Monolith’s development of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel.

It will probably be a while until we see what Lehto’s new studio is up to. That said, a new first-person game in development at EA, alongside all the other projects currently in the hopper, are certainly setting an intriguing tone for the publisher headed into this new generation.