Former LA Noire and Whore of the Orient devs establish a new indie game studio (update)

Two former Team Bondi and KMM developers have established a new game development studio in Australia called Intuitive Game Studios, MCV Pacific reports.

The founders are Alex Carlyle, design lead for Team Bondi's L.A. Noire and Kennedy Miller Mitchell's Whore of the Orient, and Kelly Baigent, storyboarder for L.A . Noire and owner of New Zealand-based Tui Studios.

"I really do want to stay in Australia and try and overcome the drive which is leading everyone to Canada or the like," Carlyle told MCV.

Carlyle told Polygon that he believes talented people will always get work and that many of his former colleagues successfully employed "is a testament to this," but it is a shame that many of them are overseas.

"In Australia we are competing against countries that have heavily invested in the games industry for many years," he explained. "And those companies have been fortunate to benefit from this, growing sustainable communities for developers and creating those opportunities."

He went on to say that Australia is seeing an "encouraging expansion" of indie development due to growing backing from State and Federal Government funding and support from the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

"Here in Australia one of the things we do well is creating work for ourselves, and there are some great examples of us thriving at this," Carlyle said. "I'm proud to be joining this community and contributing towards a sustainable industry."

As yet, the studio hasn't revealed any information about its future projects. Carlyle told MCV that they will initially hire people on a contracting basis rather than full-time.

Last month, members of the game development studio at Kennedy Miller Mitchell were laid off. The studio, which largely consisted of L.A. Noire's development team, was working on the 1930s detective game Whore of the Orient. At the time, KMM's Doug Mitchell confirmed with MCV that Whore of the Orient hasn't been killed.

Polygon reached out to Intuitive Game Studios and will update this post as more information comes to hand.

Update: This article has been updated with Intuitive Game Studios' comments.