Named Maverick Games, its led by the former director ofForza Horizon 5- a creative risk-taker named Mike Brown.
Games are made in a very certain way that brings with it real security,Brown told GamesIndustry.bizin January.
Brittain has never worked on a videogame before.
Then all of a sudden, we were going on nice holidays, Brittain says.
With money from that, he bought me an Amiga 1200, which was a serious bit of kit.
Which was the beginning of the end for me, really.
I just played on that for the next few years.
A self-confessed weird kid, Brittain loved the way a computer monitor doubled as a window into grown-up lives.
Videogames back then were just this fabulous conversation with that side of myself, he says.
You could play a LucasArts adventure game and almost make friends with the characters.
I had real friends as well, I wasnt too bad, but there was a whole outlet there.
Specifically, they were obsessed with The OC, the Californian portrayal of teenagehood that leaned into melodrama.
Theres no way of getting around the amount of nepotism that was involved, Brittain says.
Youve got me bang to rights there, Im the original TV nepo baby.
By no means the first, and I will not be the last.
With Elsley steering the ship, Brittain and his student flatmates became part of the writing team.
Anything with a sort of authenticity to it, and a sense of truth and cheekiness to their characters.
The great games of the era, by contrast, felt distant and unreachable.
The collaborative bit was always the part of TV writing that inspired and excited me.
In recent years, Brittain has written for Breeders, the unflinching Martin Freeman series about struggling parents.
His work with Elsley, meanwhile, has crept towards gaming territory.
He discoveredBloodborne, and dug into a burgeoning indie scene that hadnt existed during his childhood.
That was also around the time I had a baby, he says.
I found myself listening to a bunch of other podcasts and joining a bunch of Discords.
Eventually, Brittain found himself co-hosting The Crate And Crowbar, a role he still fills most weeks.
And he ultimately resolved to transform his career to reflect his growing love for the medium of games.
I made it my full-time job to go after those [narrative roles] quite aggressively, he says.
And it was quite a humbling experience.
It was an intense period.
If you talk to anyone for long enough, theyve got a story.
And if you tell someone a story, people have got opinions on it.
For me, thats always been the magic of a writers room.
90% of all the best TV shows youve ever seen are made that way.
And its a gloriously fun way of doing things.
I never particularly relished that responsibility of being at the top of the pyramid.
Its a lesson that Brittain has carried with him.
Something Im passionate about is finding ways to democratise the storytelling process, he says.
Because Im actually not that interesting.
Its other peoples stories Im interested in.
