"Hudson now leads Arcanaut Studios, which has promised to ship Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic before 2030. But Zhu wants to keep teams lean and "avoid having hundreds and hundreds of people" as production ramps up. Hudson promises that generative AI is not something his developers are pivoting to in order to make that happen."
"A new report at Bloomberg details how NetEase alum Simon Zhu has been going around rescuing projects that the company, from which he resigned last year, had previously pulled funding from. That includes Hudson's previous venture, Humanoid Origin, and Call of Duty veteran David Vonderhaar 's BulletFarm. Zhu launched a new holding company GreaterThan Group with private investment of up to $100 million to fill a void left by what he calls an overcorrection as funding exits gaming for tech and AI instead."
""I just find AI to be creatively soulless," he told Bloomberg. "It's hard to imagine where it's actually helpful in the process. I'm just really unimpressed with it.""
""Bigger isn't necessarily better," Hudson said. "If I'm excited about a game and then I find out that it's 200 hours long - even if I have no ambition to actually finish it - I wonder, if I put 20 hours in, will I even be out of act one? A lot of players just want to play something and finish it.""
Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic was revealed as a major surprise at the Game Awards 2026 showcase, with Casey Hudson leading the project. Funding came through Simon Zhu, a former NetEase veteran who created GreaterThan Group with private investment of up to $100 million after NetEase pulled support from earlier ventures. Zhu has been backing projects that previously lost funding, including Hudson’s Humanoid Origin and David Vonderhaar’s BulletFarm. Hudson leads Arcanaut Studios and plans to ship the game before 2030 while keeping production teams lean. Hudson rejects generative AI as creatively unhelpful and says the game will not be an oversized, 100+ hour experience, emphasizing player completion and focus.
Read at Kotaku
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