Studio to Develop New Star Wars Mobile Game in Austin

Looks like the Force is strong with Austin's game development community: Mobile gaming powerhouse Zynga has just announced it will open a studio in Austin dedicated to developing a new Star Wars mobile game.

Possibly most famous for developing Words With Friends and Farmville, the San Francisco-based mobile gaming developer announced today that the new studio will be housed within its existing Austin office.

The studio will focus on developing a new Star Wars mobile game with Zynga subsidiary NaturalMotion, and will work with British-based BossAlien, a division of NaturalMotion. Led by game industry veterans NaturalMotion Senior Vice President of Games Jeff Hickman and BossAlien General Manager Matthew Hemby, the new studio is looking to hire 25 new employees, including Producer, Environment Artist, Lead Engineer, Design Director and Lead Level Designer (find the full list of vacancies here).

There's a lot of Star Wars knowledge in the team. Zynga originally signed a licensing deal for Star Wars mobile games with Disney in 2018, and NaturalMotion took over operations of the Disney-developed Star Wars: Commander strategy game from 2019 until it was closed in June. Moreover, Hickman is no stranger to a galaxy far, far away, having previously served as executive producer on BioWare's The Old Republic MMORPG.

Regarding building this new Austin team, he said, “As a longtime Austinite, I know firsthand the immense level of talent and creativity that resides in this beautiful city. We believe that the Austin talent market is highly compatible with our mission of bringing AAA console visuals and deep, compelling gameplay to mobile platforms."

So that's what we do know so far. What we don't know yet is, well, anything about the game. No word on what kind it is, or what era of the timeline it will be set in. But the words Star and Wars are enough to get us interested.