New studio Bodeville launched by former Niantic staff

Bodeville, a new independent games studio, has been founded by two former Niantic employees.

The studio: It was unveiled on November 1.

• Bodeville is entirely self-funded and is based out of Charlotte, North Carolina.
• It has been founded by Alexia "Flex" Mandeville and Bo Boghosian, two ex-Niantic personnel that worked together on the upcoming title Peridot.
• They want to create "beautiful worlds, stories, and characters" and to be fair to players. In a blog post, they state that being an independent company is the most effective way of reaching those aspirations.

The founders: They're already working on two narrative-driven games.

• Boghosian previously worked on Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite before becoming the engineering lead for Peridot.
• Mandeville was the Lead Game Designer of Peridot, a real-world adventure pet game that uses augmented reality. She previously worked on Horizon Worlds as a Game Designer at Oculus VR.