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EA hires former Bungie leader to open a game studio in Seattle

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 1 min

Electronic Arts is opening a new game studio in Seattle led by former Bungie creative director Marcus Lehto.

Lehto tweeted that his studio will be working on “first-person” games, which I interpret to be a first-person shooter title. Lehto is known as one of the co-creators on Halo, and he worked as art director on the original Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 games.

Just prior to starting the studio, he was president and game director at V1 Interactive, which closed down earlier this year. He will report to Vince Zampella, head of EA’s Respawn studio, the maker of Apex Legends.

EA has also opened a studio in the Seattle area headed by former Monolith executive Kevin Stephens. That studio is working on an open-world adventure game. EA once had a studio in Seattle but closed it in 2002. In 2011, it also acquired PopCap Games in Seattle for $750 million.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.