Call of Duty Mobile studio TiMi is making a AAA live service shooter at a new Seattle studio

Call of Duty Mobile developer TiMi is making a AAA live service shooter at a newly established North American studio.

Set for release on multiple platforms, the original property is in development at TiMi Seattle, a Bellevue, Washington-based studio which already employs 25 staff but has yet to physically open its doors.

Its office, which is scheduled to open later in 2021, will include “a state-of-the-art playtest lab” enabling the team to “consistently leverage player feedback to improve their services”.

The studio is headed up by Halo 4 lead designer Scott Warner, who joined TiMi as a design and studio director in May 2020, and Rosi Zagorcheva, an EA and Battlefield veteran who was most recently head of development and operations for DICE LA.

Further reading

Xbox partners with Tencent’s Call of Duty Mobile studio for ‘new game experiences’

The companies will reveal their joint project later this year

“We want to exceed the AAA expectations of players today and this team will have the resources and talent to make it happen,” said TiMi international director Vincent Gao. “Through collaboration and access to TiMi’s global resources, this team in Seattle can make AAA console games ready for global audiences on multiple platforms.”

“Opportunities to have the creative freedom to make new games with the support of a leading development studio like TiMi just is not the norm,” Warner said. “Usually, the best talent is offered a choice between making another sequel or taking a personal risk to make a smaller-scale game.”

TiMi is currently recruiting for art, design, engineering and production roles across its Seattle and Los Angeles offices, which will collaborate on the newly announced game.

Tencent subsidiary TiMi reportedly generated $10 billion in 2020, making it the world’s largest developer, according to Reuters sources.

Established in 2008, TiMi is best known in the west for Call of Duty Mobile, which has topped 500 million downloads since launching in November 2019, according to publisher Activision.

Further reading

Tencent has confirmed the hiring of Kojima Productions veteran Imaizumi

Metal Gear producer joins gaming giant as production director; Halo 4 lead also hired

It is also behind the League of Legends-inspired Honor of Kings, a Chinese sensation which consistently ranks among the top-grossing mobile games worldwide.

And it’s currently developing Pokémon Unite, an online team battle game coming to Switch in July and to mobile later, and a AAA open-world title using Unreal Engine 5, which is reportedly designed to scale across mobile, PC and console and appeal to a global audience.