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‘Skyrim’ World Artist Rashad Redic Cofounds New Studio

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Former Bethesda world artist Rashad Redic—whose past work includes Fallout 3, Skyrim, and 2016’s Skyrim Special Edition—has cofounded a new studio called Brass Lion Entertainment. Redic joins founders Manveer Heir (Mass Effect 3) and Bryna Dabby Smith (Sleeping Dogs) in their shared mission to introduce more diverse representation to the world of video games and beyond.

“It’s no secret that the video-game industry workforce in North America is predominantly white and male, and that those homogeneous creative voices are disproportionately in charge of creative in games, compared to the demographics of the players,” Heir wrote in a blog post earlier this month. “While there is a push to diversify the representation of characters and stories in games, it’s happening fairly slowly and often without the inclusion of creatives and developers who represent that diverse tapestry. As a result, we are left with an industry that often misses the mark when it comes to representing our collective communities and cultures.”

The company’s first project, Corner Wolves, will start as a game but also grow to encompass other media, like comics and podcasts. The start-up aims to bring their vision to film and TV, eventually, as well. Corner Wolves itself is an IP centered on Harlem, New York, in the mid-1990s, and tells the stories of young people targeted by the war on drugs. Other contributors to the project include writer Evan Narcisse (Rise of the Black Panther) and Grammy-winning producer Just Blaze.

“The appeal of hip-hop,” Redic told Game Informer, “was you’d get that lens of what life was like in a way that felt like someone was telling you a personal story. We just have to figure out how we distill that into a game. If rap was the sort of genesis of the inner city and urban communities having a voice and giving people a window into their lives, then maybe our game is going to be the beginning of that as an art form for us.”

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