Studio is in recruiting mode, creating a scholarship for students of the School of Digital Arts, Animation and Design.

“The great thing about Sony and PlayStation is the emphasis on quality. That’s one of the reasons we were so excited to join their family,” said Jade Raymond, founder of Haven Interactive Studios, on show in Montreal on Thursday, June 6. October 2022. Photo by Allen McInnis /Montreal Gazette

One of Montreal’s newest homegrown video game studios officially opened its downtown offices on Thursday — saying it’s already looking for a new home.

Haven Interactive Studios, the brainchild of industry veteran Jade Raymond and about two dozen former Google game makers, invited media representatives Thursday to show off its open-space offices in Place Ville Marie and discuss its prospects as one of 19 development hubs for Sony Interactive. Entertainment’s PlayStation console.

The 100-plus employees will eventually trade their digs for a bigger site, said Raymond, the chief executive officer who sold the startup to Sony this year, just 12 months after she was left on her own. Haven currently leases space from Montreal-based creative agency Sid Lee.

“We are working on another space that will be our home for the longer term,” Raymond said in an interview on Thursday. “We are very grateful to Sid Lee for letting us use their space. When we built our company during the pandemic, we didn’t know how we were going to use the place. It would have been very difficult to design and know our space. Now that we’re working together, we can see what works and how people really use the office.”

Raymond declined to provide details on when the move might take place, or how much space Haven will need.

“We have nothing to report for now,” she said.

Haven’s March 2021 unveiling came about six weeks after Google announced Raymond’s departure and the closure of its Stadia Games and Entertainment division dedicated to making exclusive games — in direct competition with PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox. A year later, Sony acquired Haven for an undisclosed amount.

Raymond, a computer science graduate, first made a name for herself during a ten-year stint at Ubisoft Entertainment, where she helped create the popular Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs franchises. She also founded the French company’s Toronto studio, which under her leadership developed such titles as Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

Haven’s first project for PlayStation will be a multiplayer game that Sony described in March as a live experience “built on a systemic and evolving world focused on delivering freedom, excitement and playfulness.”

Raymond was curt about the concept or timing of the game’s release on Thursday, saying, “It’s early days. The great thing about Sony and PlayStation is the emphasis on quality. That’s one of the reasons we were so excited to join their family. We’ll get the time we need to make an excellent game.”

When asked if this could take years instead of months, she replied, “Yes.”

Haven’s first game will be based on machine learning to create a better experience for gamers, Raymond said.

More than 30 percent of Haven’s team is focused on advanced machine learning, artificial intelligence and cloud-based development tools, Raymond said. One of the company’s newest employees, Concordia University computer science MSc student Nasir Khalid, focuses on applying deep learning to three-dimensional geometry.

“Of course we make 3D games. Until now, machine learning has mainly been used to generate 2D images,” says Raymond. “We have some of the best artists in the industry in our studio. We have a character artist who draws great faces. This is a craft that takes him so much time. So what we really want to see is how we can speed up what he’s doing so we can deliver a little more. We think we can create these tools that enhance the creativity of our team.”

Separately, on Thursday, Haven said it is creating a scholarship for students at the School of Digital Arts, Animation and Design and will launch a programmer internship program that will welcome students in January. Five vacancies will be advertised.

The studio is in rental mode. Including the internships, Haven’s website lists 17 job openings currently open in areas such as animation, information technology management, software development and machine learning research.

“We didn’t call the studio Haven by accident,” Raymond said. “We really wanted that name because we have the vision to build a studio that is a haven for people, where people can really feel they can do their best work.”

ftomesco@postmedia.com

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