Former Payday, Battlefield developers team up for a new RPG

Payday 2 Game Director David Goldfarb has announced that he's joined up with former Battlefield Executive Producer Ben Cousins to launch a new indie studio called The Outsiders, whose first project will be what he described as his "first real stab" at an RPG.

Goldfarb told Eurogamer that he's been working on the concept for a long time now, and decided to reach out to Cousins after he came to a point where he felt he couldn't continue moving forward on his own. Since leaving DICE, Cousins has become an advocate of free-to-play games, but Goldfarb said that doesn't necessarily mean that this game will be free-to-play.

Goldfarb said he's interested in making a game with a dynamic story rather than one with a "set structure," something he said BioShock designer Ken Levine has been talking about recently. "I have another way I want to try and do that. But I think it won't be a game of cut scenes," he said. "If the guys at Naughty Dog want to go do that—and they're superb at what they craft—then that's awesome. I would rather find the stories that exist in... people use the sports analogy a lot, but when you play Madden, for example. The dream is to combine some of that with some of this."

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.