Tomb Raider Devs, Forest Swartout Large & Tim Longo, Founds Twin Suns Corp

As normal life came crashing to a halt, last year was a change in direction for many people. So it's perhaps no surprise that already this year, we had not one but two new companies with Tomb Raider links pop up. 

Today, I wanted to talk about Twin Suns Corp, a brand new studio based in Seattle which was founded by Forest Swartout Large, Jeff Morris (Gears of War) and Tim Longo Jr.

All three are veterans in the games industry, but Tomb Raider fans may know Forest Swartout Large and Tim Longo's work best from the Tomb Raider series.

Originally, Tim Longo had served at Crystal Dynamics as Senior Designer before a promotion to Creative Director on the Tomb Raider Anniversary's Wii Edition. Following the launch of Anniversary, he moved to work on the 2013 reboot while it was in its concept and preproduction phases. In his final year at the company, he became the Franchise Director, overseeing the Tomb Raider series as a whole. He departed from Crystal Dynamics in 2011, returning to Lucasfilm and the place where he originally broke into the games industry in 1996. From there he worked for 343 Industries, working on the Halo franchise, before switching to consulting and finally the formation of Twin Suns Corp.

As for Forest Swartout Large, she was the Producer and Senior Manager at Crystal Dynamics for four years. After joining in 2007, Large became the Producer on Tomb Raider Underworld and transferred to the Lara Croft series for its first instalment, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Since then she has worked on the Hitman franchise (originally as Producer and then Executive Producer) as well as Inside. 

In a press release, Tim Longo stated that “forming this company and team is about bringing incredible people together to collaborate and make uniquely creative and amazing action games. Twin Suns Corp is literally a dream team of expert talent from across the planet and I can’t wait to work with all of them again.”

The studio recently received funding from 1UP Venture as well as Hiro Capital. The latter may be on the radar for some Tomb Raider fans as one of the company's founders is Ian Livestone, the President and CEO of Eidos Interactive (now Square Enix Europe) until 2013. In the press release, Livingstone commented, “I had the pleasure of working with Tim Longo on the Tomb Raider reboot before he went on to become Creative Director at 343 Industries to develop Halo 5. Tim is hugely talented and has assembled a fantastic team at Twin Suns. We are delighted to be partnering with Tim and his team and are incredibly excited by the potential of their creative vision and their ability to develop groundbreaking new titles in the AAA space.”

The funding will be put towards making a cross-platform AAA title for a new IP. They are currently looking for Lead Technical Artist, Lead VFX Artist, Lead Character Artist, and Lead Environmental Artist to join the team.

You can learn more about Twin Suns Corp via Polygon, Game Informer, or the studio's website.