2K announced the creation of Small Axe Studios, an AAA studio based in Burnaby, in the Vancouver area, Canada, with a team made up of veterans of the FIFA series. The publisher hasn't revealed the game in production, but early steps point to a soccer simulator.
Small Axe Studios was born out of 2K Sports Lab, a research project started in 2023 and coordinated by Aaron McHardy since his arrival at 2K in March of that year. McHardy spent nearly 18 years at Electronic Arts, where he served as executive producer on the FIFA series and later ran Madden and College Football. He now holds the roles of vice president, executive producer, and studio head.
Gary Paterson was hired as design director. With 22 years in the industry, he worked on FIFA, FIFA Manager, FIFA Street, and NBA Live, and came from Criterion Games, where he was design director on the Need for Speed franchise. The leadership also includes Tom Pan (operations), Mike Thompson (engineering), and John Cruz (technical art director), all EA alumni.
Signs of Soccer
The publisher doesn't specify the sport, but the open positions and the team's profile reinforce the reading that the project is soccer. The opening for gameplay design director requires "deep understanding of the sports game landscape." The studio's logo resembles a soccer shield.
A job posting for senior gameplay animation engineer states that the professional will recreate the "beautiful, continuous flow of modern field sports" and work with animation-based mechanics, including "complex locomotion, physical contests, and intricate foot-and-object interactions." The same listing cites "pitch-perfect gameplay," a phrase in which pitch also means field, and tracking "teams' tactical formations from the first whistle to the last second of extra time."
Another listing, for senior network engineer, describes building the "network backbone of the next AAA sports game" and implementing real-time multiplayer on Unreal Engine 5, with dedicated servers and fighting latency and synchronization. The postings indicate the online mode will be the title's foundation.
Competition in Soccer
The move puts 2K on a collision course with EA Sports FC, which hasn't faced a relevant rival since Konami turned Pro Evolution Soccer into the free-to-play eFootball. 2K had already tried to get into soccer through licenses: according to Insider Gaming, it negotiated a ten-year contract with FIFA that would include World Cup rights and the FIFPRO license for player likenesses. Talks advanced, but the federation chose Netflix and Delphi Interactive.
Small Axe Studios therefore starts without the FIFA license and will have to build its own brand in soccer. Take-Two's president, 2K's parent company, Strauss Zelnick, spent years giving evasive answers to questions about the sport. The studio being set up in the same region where EA produced its series, with FIFA veterans, is the clearest sign of the intention to enter the fray. AAA sports games usually take years of development.
