Louis Castle joins Amazon to head Crucible team

Louis Castle, best known for his work on the Command & Conquer real-time strategy series, has been hired as head of Amazon Game Studios Seattle. He’ll head up the team working on Amazon's multiplayer combat game Crucible (above).

Castle, the co-founder of Westwood Studios, was instrumental in the launch of the C&C series, one of the leaders in the 1990s RTS boom. He co-founded the company in 1985. After its purchase by EA in 1998 he held various senior positions at that company.

Since 2010 he's held a number of roles, including at GarageGames and Zynga. Castle is a BAFTA and GDC Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

Crucible is a MOBA-inspired shooter for 12 players, in which combatants can switch sides and betray their teammates. It also features a 13th player who can trigger in-game events while livestreaming to Twitch. The game was unveiled at TwitchCon in September last year.

In recent years, Amazon has been expansive in the game industry, increasing its studio network and buying streaming service Twitch, as well as selling games via its retail hub. Last month, the company opened a new studio headed up by former Sony Online Entertainment chief John Smedley.