Former Galaxy on Fire mobile studio head announces next-gen collective Rockfish

Former CEO of mobile game group Fishlabs, Michael Schade, is forming a new game studio that will make the move into next-gen territory on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Following the closure of Fishlabs last year when the company announced its bankruptcy, Schade is returning with the development team, now under the studio banner Rockfish.

".... Now we're completely platform agnostic but of course we're going to stick with high-end, 3D action games," Schade said of the new group, "The first project we're doing is most likely going to happen on next-gen console, unfortunately I can't reveal too much about it at this point in time. But hopefully we can announce something around Gamescom."

Rockfish is made up of a team of 10 developers and is currently working alongside another unnamed studio. Its first release is now in pre-production and according to Schade could be supported through crowdfunding at a later stage.

The German development team was purchased by entertainment behemoth Koch Media following its bankruptcy filing, while retaining the studio's 52 remaining employes. Schade described the sale of the studio as an "asset deal," stating that "all employees will be transferred to the buyer automatically." He and fellow co-founder Christian Lohr left the company they founded in 2004 following the buy out.

We've reached out to Schade for more details on his new game. Check out our interview with the developer regarding the release of mobile massively multiplayer game Galaxy on Fire: Alliances.