But we don’t know how far the game was along before they moved over, maybe those people were already done their jobs thats the thing.
Yeah I expect FH5 to be crossgen, the game looks stunning on the Series X and it was designed as a XB1/1X game so that doesn’t mean it would look bad.
Yeah I think I remember seeing that which is one of the reasons why I questioned it.
iirc they were pretty close, if not already there before. in the 170-200 range for sure. I think that they might be detangling the ongoing live support that forza horizon 4, and presumably future titles, has from the group of people that make new titles. I could see having those teams be intertwined could cause more headaches scheduling wise than would be ideal.
according to linkedIn (which doesnt have everyone that works there) playground has 291 employees, guesstimate that ~90% of employees have linkedIn (it is a microsoft service after all) and they have a total headcount of ~320.
I was just looking and I was shocked at how big Rare has gotten, they have 254 employees on linkedIn! using the same method as above they likely have ~280 employees total, thats a ton more than I thought they would have! Maybe its because they rely less on outsourcing?
Rand seems to think FH5 this year is a very real possibility, but due to covid could be delayed until spring 2022.
I think it would’ve been a 2020 title if COVID didn’t hit imo, Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 would’ve been a really good launch line up.
Klobrille has said that playground wants to grow to be 400 people as a baseline, with two 200 person teams, so that kinda lines up with them having ~320 people currently.
I wonder if they will start up a third team at some point? It would make sense for them to have a location in continental europe, even though I’m sure it wont be too hard for people from europe to work at playground in a post brexit world it would lower the barriers to entry, no need for visas and the like. Especially because the leamington spa game developer market has to be incredibly over subscribed, with all the studios gearing up in the region, Rare isnt that far away, ubisoft has a studio nearby, codemasters is right there, etc etc
I kinda like the sound of Playground Games Madrid for some reason.
Let’s see how Fable turns out first.
The Rare headcount makes total sense because they have a game in active development and also support for Sea of Thieves - I believe it is well over a 100 people still working on the game.
oh to be clear by 3rd team I meant like a support team who would work with the fable and horizon team in the uk, not that they would be working on a third game. Its pretty clear to me because of how long its taking them to fill their job positions that they are having trouble hiring as fast as they would like where they are.
I was thinking if they had a Playground games madrid (as an example) they could have say 100 people split between the forza horizon and fable teams. It just gives them access to a less constrained labor market thats all.
Personally I just don’t really understand this whole Forza Horizon 5 rumour.
Playground have proven themselves to be an incredibly efficient & well disciplined studio so far. I really can’t foresee a situation where they would suddenly throw caution to the wind & attempt to develop 2 huge, expensive AAA titles at the same time. That just sounds like a recipe for disaster. The people in charge of the studio seem smarter than that.
This leads me to believe that they will focus on 1 thing at a time &, well, they just revealed Fable last year.
I think it’s possible that a small number of devs are working on FH5 pre-production, of course. That seems sensible to me. The majority of the studio must be on Fable though. It’s a mammoth undertaking in a completely new genre for them. They must be almost wholly focused on it for now.
Of course, I could be completely wrong & they could be a bunch of absolute mad lads who are ready to blow our minds & drop FH5 this year & Fable next year. I don’t think that’ll happen but I certainly wouldn’t complain if it did 
This is not the right way to look at it. We refer to Playground as one single studio, but in reality it is closer to look at them as two separate studios under one studio name. The two studios are in two completely different locations and with two different creative leadership teams.
They have been on a 2 year cadence since the start and me and a lot of people here cannot see why this would suddenly turn into 5 years, because I think Forza Motorsport has a decent chance of coming out next year and both Forzas will never release in the same year.
Don’t think the angle is completely wrong, I just think FH5 is already mostly done. So most of the studio can focus on Fable.
They know we all want 
and they don’t have to reinvent the game formula.
It’s should come out later this year.
2020? I don’t know about that. Did the rumor about FH5 come from reliable sources? I don’t really remember.
They are two entirely different teams. If you look at the hires they even specify if they are joining the Horizon team or the Fable team. They are even in separate physical locations.
There is some likely commonality at the upper levers of management and technology focused groups and that is it.
If it came out in 2020 it would’ve been 2 years since FH4 which has been the gap between FH games since the first one so not sure why the would’ve changed it after 8 years. Look I’m not saying it is 100% confirmed that it is this year but if it doesn’t come out this year and it comes out next year that’s 4 years, they could’ve made 2 games why would it take an extra two years.
I can’t remember who leaked it but I thought it would be common sense because how good PG are at pumping out these games and have more than 2 years is unheard of for the FH team. The game could come out this year, next year or in 5 years haha we just don’t know but I really do expect it this year.
You’re right about that. But on the other hand, last year they announced FM too. Would they really announce FH5 this year and release it? FM did seem far away still, but they have yet to even mention FH5. 
If its a retooled FH5 with the current engine I guess I can see it but that would just seem like putting out a game for the sake of it no? Not that I doubt Playground’s quality but still.
It was the same for forza Motorsport until they changed it, so it doesn’t mean much. I don’t know what will happen, but they have precedent in Motorsport.
I prefer forza horizon, so that would work for me, but I’m okay whatever they choose.
Good. The sooner this multiplatform-bs is over and done with the better. Psychonauts 2 should be the last unless MS goes in the wrong direction with Bethesda. Then all the studios can focus on Xbox.
It started with Jeff Grubb, but he said he had no knowledge of it, he just wouldn’t be surprised given their normal cadence. It was more a guess than “inside knowledge”.
Also, The Outer Worlds 2 with an AAA budget.