Forza Horizon 5 was released in November 2021, cheering racing game fans on Xbox and PC. But now there is a significant turning point in the development studio.
As officially announced, Gavin Raeburn is leaving the developer Playground Games. He co-founded the studio in 2009 and has since acted as the studio director, thus steering the fate of the Forza Horizon series significantly.
Opposite to Windows Central Also commented on Microsoft’s CVP for the Forza and Fable brands, Alan Hartman, on the departure of Raeburn. He thanked Raeburn for the 12 years of work on the award-winning Forza Horizon games: “We thank Gav for his leadership and contributions to the Forza franchise, and we wish him all the best.”
Even before he co-founded Playground, Raeburn already had a respectable vita. He worked as a producer and designer on various racing games at Codemasters, including the original DiRT and Race Driver: GRID. In this respect, he leaves big footsteps that are to be filled by another co-founder of Playground Games.
Trevor Williams will namely take over the position of studio manager. The change in staff should not have too great an impact on the projects: Work on updates for Forza Horizon 5 and a new fable continues at Playground Games.
An incredible number of games were released in 2021. As every year, our editorial team voted and awarded the igamesnews Awards. Here are our top 20 games of 2021.
