Midnight Society’s first game will be on Unreal Engine 5
Believe it or not, of all the most popular streamers in the world, Beahm arguably has the best resume to establish his own studio. Before pursuing his career as a full-time streamer, Beahm was a developer at Sledgehammer Games. He had a hand in the creation of several Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare maps, giving him some relevant experience in terms of shepherding a game development studio - but Beahm isn’t going to be the head of development of his studio. Speaking of, we’ve known for months that Beahm was up to something, we just didn’t know what to call it. Now, on his Twitter account, Beahm has confirmed the name of his AAA studio, Midnight Society, which will be composed of other developers with previous experience working on Halo and Call of Duty games.
Give us a follow @12am It’s time. https://t.co/vKIOzpVjK9 — Dr Disrespect (@DrDisrespect) December 14, 2021 According to the official Midnight Society website, the studio is “focused on delivering the best, most community-focused, online PVP multiplayer experience the world has ever seen.” In addition to this, we’ve also found out that the studio’s first project is a game built on Unreal Engine 5 that it intends to make available to a “Day-Zero Community” as well as major content creators. Finally, the studio wants to include influencers and gaming communities throughout the development of all their games going forward. The fledgling studio’s decision to include influencers is uncommon but not without its benefits. For example, Respawn Entertainment’s hit battle royale game, Apex Legends, reportedly brought in influencers and streamers throughout multiple stages of the game’s development to provide input. Then, when it launched, the same content creators played a huge role in helping Respawn and Electronic Arts roll out the game en masse. Midnight Society could take a similar approach albeit start much earlier. As a streamer himself and someone who worked on video games in the past, Dr. Disrespect must have realized the upside of such a radical concept. Of course, it remains to be seen if Dr. Disrespect’s non-standard business model will work and how it will affect the video game industry as a whole. In the meantime, fans and other AAA studios will be watching Midnight Society closely. Interestingly enough, there were rumors earlier this year that an NFT-based shooter game was coming up. Considering how the leak detailed that it would come from a studio composed of former Halo developers, it’ll be interesting to see if Tom Henderson was referring to Midnight Society or not.
