Update: Robin Hunicke, executive producer at thatgamecompany, has also left to join Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi at social game developer Tiny Speck.
Journey, the latest offering from developer thatgamecompany, has been receiving high praise since its release earlier this month. Despite the recent success, Kellee Santiago, co-founder and president of thatgamecompany, will be leaving the studio.
In a recent interview, Santiago expressed the amicable nature regarding her depature – the end goal is to simply “seek new challenges.”
She also added that her time with the innovative company provided her with invaluable experience and set the studio up for future success.
“On top of that, founding a company whose explicit goal was to do new types of game development really allowed me to be able to try out new processes for game development, to try out new ideas,” she said. “So much of my work at thatgamecompany was really supporting Jenova’s visions for the types of games he wanted to make, and I felt like I have done everything I needed to do there, and that he’s in a great place now to go on and continue with some of the other people at thatgamecompany, to take that to a whole new height.”
Santiago hasn’t shared any specific future plans yet, but she hopes to “help in accelerating the growth of video games as a medium.”
Jenova Chen, co-founder and creative director at thatgamecompany, released a statement regarding Santiago’s departure:
“While we want to continue the path of thatgamecompany, Kellee has found a new direction in her career. Though our path in the future may be different, as TGC begins our next project, we wish Kellee a good journey and that our paths may cross again.”
