MEET STRAY KITE STUDIOS

Growing Game Development Company Moves To Plano

story Alyssa High |

photography Lauren Allen

Every day, thousands of teens around the world launch Fortnite Creative on their gaming consoles and build islands to play their own versions of the popular game. Behind these screens are developers, designers and artists ensuring that each part of the game is artfully and practically designed. Some of these developers come from Stray Kite Studios, a Plano-based game development company created by industry veterans who are focused on the storytelling potential of interactive media.

Paul Hellquist and Plano resident Shovaen Patel started Stray Kite five years ago after leaving Robot Entertainment due to company layoffs.

“Prior to Robot, I was at Gearbox which at the time was around 300 people, now 1,500 or 1,600 people,” Hellquist says. “The difference is the impact [we have] on literally every part of the business and the products we’re doing. Everyone at our studio has a significant impact on our products and we’re very open and transparent.”

The pair began pitching themselves to potential companies seeking contracted developers and landed a project with Epic Games developing Fortnite Creative.

The project quickly grew and Patel and Hellquist had to expand the team, bringing in former co-workers from Robot Entertainment and new talents from around the country. In just five years, Stray Kite has grown to over 30 employees. Together, the team brings credits from known industry franchises like Borderlands, Bioshock, Saints Row, Age of Empires, Fortnite and Destiny.

“They [Epic] were so easy to work with,” Art Director Paul Slusser says. “It was a really fun time building games for that environment.”

In addition to Fortnite Creative , Stray Kite Studios has partnered with Gearbox and 2K to produce Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-Shot Adventure and is currently partnering with Genvid Entertainment to develop an unannounced massively interactive live event.

Since its inception in 2018, Stray Kite has been based in Richardson. Now that many are returning to the office, Patel and Hellquist sought out a larger office space that is centralized to the staff’s home addresses.

“The spontaneous creativity that happens when people are together that has been very difficult to recapture in a full remote environment,” Hellquist says.

The team laid out everyone’s addresses on a map and estimated their commute times during peak hours and lined it up with mixed-use communities to attract younger talent. They landed on an office space in the Village 121 development, which has several apartments, restaurants and other amenities.

While the office is still under construction, the team is aiming to move in in the fall. After working on the Fortnite Creative project for years, the team has discussions in the works with other game development companies and hopes to trademark their own games.

One example of these games is Hogwarts Legacy , which many on the team have been playing in their freetime.

“We are very big on what we call player stories,” Hellquist says. “Those are the stories that the players create through their play so how they interact with the game creates these special moments that are very unique to that particular player.”

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