Former Playground Games Studio Head Gavin Raeburn Forms New Studio

Forza Horizon developer Playground Games’ co-founder and former studio head Gavin Raeburn has revealed his new AAA studio Lighthouse Games.

Raeburn and “a team of world class developers” are currently working on an unannounced new IP, but shared no details as to what this will be or if it’s even in the racing genre.

As the former executive producer on several Dirt and GRID games, however, and the studio head of Playground as it produced five Forza Horizon games, it’s perhaps likely that Lighthouse is working on a new racing game.

Raeburn is joined by 30 former colleagues including “key founding members” of Playground Games and other industry-leading talent, again alluding to the creation of something new in the racing game genre.

“I’m delighted that 30 former colleagues and other industry heavyweights have chosen to join me at Lighthouse,” Raeburn said.

“With Horizon, Playground and I created one of the most successful Xbox franchises of all time. We delivered significant commercial success year after year, to massive critical acclaim, following the success from my time at Codemasters leading Dirt, Grid and F1.

“That DNA is now at Lighthouse, and with it, we intend to build something truly special using all our experience to create a new genre-defining franchise.”

It’ll be a while before we find out what that franchise is, of course, given that Lighthouse Games as a studio has only been announced today, and likely years longer before the game is released.

Raeburn's pedigree speaks for itself and he wasn’t wrong about the success of Forza Horizon. IGN has awarded every single game in the franchise at least a 9/10 in our reviews, with the latest Forza Horizon 5 reaching a new level and earning masterpiece status.

Playground has deviated from the Forza Horizon series for the first time in its history though, as it’s now working on the Fable reboot coming to Xbox Series X and S.

It’s unclear if this pivot has anything to do with racing veteran Raeburn’s departure, though he is part of the second group of developers to leave Playground in almost as many months. Forza Horizon 5 creative director Mike Brown left to form Maverick Games in January, taking lots of top talent with him.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.