Wargaming said it has opened a new office in Vilnius, Lithuania, to strengthen the company’s distributed development model.
The office will employ developers and it will also act as a publishing arm for central and Eastern Europe. The new hub will be located in the city’s modern business district and will focus on current and future projects alike. Set in a rapidly expanding area of the capital, the studio will become a new working place for several hundred employees within three to four years.
For Wargaming’s MS-1 studio, Vilnius will become another key spot alongside the existing offices in Minsk and Moscow. While the flagship cross-platform shooter World of Tanks: Blitz boasts over 140 million global downloads, MS-1 will continue to create mid-core games for mobile and portable devices — with two unannounced titles in the development pipeline. The studio already has 325 people.
The studio is led by industry veteran Thaine Lyman, who has been with Wargaming since 2015. Prior to that, Thaine spent over 17 years at Activision, working as executive producer for the Call of Duty series on console and PC platforms, as well as vice president of of production overseeing games like Destiny and Marvel licensed product offerings.
The plan for the MS-1 team in Lithuania is to be a multicultural melting pot, with employees from across the world. The team will utilize this variety to help deliver games that click with different audiences, while also offering a welcoming and representative work environment for new employees.