Initially established in November of 2015, the Silicon Valley-based studio is run by a passionate team of veteran game developers with decades of experience creating critically acclaimed and hugely successful MMO and action titles. Cold Iron is currently working on developing its first major action game for consoles and PC – an original sci-fi title developed on the Unreal 4 engine. While details on the unannounced title will be released at a later date, even in its infancy Cold Iron has procured full funding to see their dream to fruition.
“We couldn’t be more excited to finally introduce the world to Cold Iron,” said the studio’s Founder and CEO, Craig Zinkievich. “We decided to start this studio last year with exactly one goal in mind: to create compelling games that we wanted to play absolutely all the time. To do that, we put together a pitch, built a great prototype, got fully-funded, and are now building an unstoppable team. We’re working hard on a AAA online action game that is literally out of this world, and we cannot wait to share it with you.”
The developers at Cold Iron are experienced at creating and designing award-winning titles that span a variety of genres. This includes games like Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, Bioshock Infinite, Metroid Prime 3, DOOM, Atlas Reactor, Batman Arkham Origins: Blackgate and the Borderlands franchise. The founding leadership team at Cold Iron includes CEO Craig Zinkievich, CTO Shannon Posniewski and Creative Director Matt Highison.
Craig Zinkievich (Founder/CEO) has over 13 years of experience designing and developing award-winning MMO games. He most recently served as Chief Operating Officer at Cryptic Studios, one of the leading developers of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Prior to leading the studio as COO, he was a leader for three of the studios’ most financially successful and critically acclaimed titles. He was Lead Producer on the popular classic, City of Heroes and Executive Producer/Game Director on the iconic sci-fi MMO, Star Trek Online, and the Dungeons and Dragons MMORPG, Neverwinter.
Shannon Posniewski (Founder/CTO) is a veteran game developer and designer with over 25 years of professional programming experience. At Cryptic Studios, he held several roles, including Principal Programmer, Director of Game Programming, and Game Director. Shannon was involved in every title the studio produced, including City of Heroes/Villains, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and Neverwinter.
Matt Highison (Founder/Creative Director) has served as Lead Artist for several successful MMO games. Most recently, he was the Art Director for Neverwinter, the D&D MMORPG set along the iconic Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms. He has also served as the Senior Lead Character Artist at Cryptic Studios, where he designed in-game character models and uniforms for Star Trek Online and Champions Online.