Second Dinner is a recently established game development studio founded by former
Hearthstone Director Ben Brode and a group of his colleagues who left Blizzard, the home of
Warcraft and
Diablo, last year. In today's announcement, this relatively small developer revealed its big plans, it's raised $30M from a minority investment by Chinese game developer and publisher NetEase Inc.
"
The Second Dinner team has a strong track record of delivering quality games. With the resources and creative freedom they now have, we look forward to what they will come up with next,” VP of NetEase Ethan Wang said in a press release. Although this young developer hasn’t announced what it's actually making yet, we have the official confirmation that it will be a Marvel game.
“
I’ve worked with Hamilton [Chu, former
Hearthstone Executive Producer and Second Dinner CEO]
and Ben [Brode]
for years and they are exactly who we want making Marvel games," said Jay Ong, EVP and Head of Marvel Games at Marvel Entertainment. “
They and the team they’ve assembled at Second Dinner have made some of the greatest games in history. And now, working with the Marvel Games team and playing in the Marvel Universe… It’s going to be Amazing! Or maybe Spectacular!"
According to Chu, "
this will be the best game ever made," as Second Dinner is currently hiring new staff in Irvine, California. Quite interestingly, the company that made this fascinating collaboration possible – NetEase – is also co-developing Blizzard Entertainment’s mobile
Diablo: Immortal and launched the Chinese versions of their games (including
Hearthstone and
World of Warcraft) last June.
Be sure to take a closer look at the ambitious Second Dinner development team in this short vlog: