MEET THE ARTIST

Xu Xiaojun of Studio Gobo answers our questions about his role as Studio Head and game director, discussing his favourite projects and day-to-day work life

Photos of Brighton-based Studio Gobo’s office setup

S tudio Gobo, the Brightonbased team of leading interactive designers and game developers, recently announced that Xu Xiaojun will take over as Head of Studio.

Founded in 2011 and a part of Keywords Studios since 2018, Studio Gobo works with AAA video games publishers the world over, partnering with companies such as Ubisoft, Disney, Tencent and Warner Bros. Starting with a team of fewer than 20 people, Gobo now has more than 100 highly talented development staff working across multiple platforms and projects.

Having joined Studio Gobo soon after it was founded, Xu Xiaojun has been an integral part of growing the design department over the past 10 years, and plans to take on 20-30 new hires by the end of 2021. Best known for his role as game director on high-profile projects like Ubisoft’s ForHonorand HyperScape, we caught up with Xiaojun to find out a little more about his new role at the helm of Studio Gobo…

Tell us a bit about your background in game design and direction.

I come from a game design background, starting my career as a level designer at Ubisoft Shanghai right after university. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to work on many different genres and found that many design principles were transferable from project to project. This helped me to build a range of concepts; I could evaluate them in a more analytical, objective way.