The team is led by studio head and creative director Mike Brown, who was previously the creative director on the Forza Horizon franchise. He is joined by other ex-Playground veterans including executive producer Tom Butcher, CTO Matt Craven, content director Gareth Harwood and audio director Fraser Strachan. Ben Penrose has joined the company as Art Director from Sharkmob (but was also a former Playground employee), and Elly Marshall has been named UX/UI Director, following her role as experience design director at EA.

They had to have one diversity hire. God help us that it's one from EA.

Running the studio itself is COO Harinder Sangha. Sangha is an award-winning studio leader who helped form Sega Hardlight and Sumo Leamington

Didn't both of these studios die?

Sangha has a reputation for trying to improve diversity within the games business, and that objective will continue at Maverick, she says.

Why did they leave Microsoft for this? It's going to be even worse.

“My aspirations still stands… 50/50" [male/female?]she tells us. “We almost got there with Sumo Leamington, but not quite. But, actually, sometimes people have to see it to believe it. They have to see that they have a place here. The fact that they can see it, already, right from day one, hopefully that makes us a more attractive place to start with.

God help the racing game industry. All we've got left that isn't under enemy control is Playground, Turn10, Polyphony Digital and Kunos. All the rest are under EA.

Sangha was initially concerned that the name ‘Maverick’ was a bit masculine,

I guarantee most of the guys will be replaced if the studio is still alive by 2025.

“I'd definitely describe myself as an open world guy first, rather than a driving guy,” Brown teases.

Sigh...