Our common readers and followers of the MMO style already know the identify of John Smedley. He was the previous head of Sony On-line Leisure for nearly twenty years, overseeing a number of the studio’s greatest video games proper till SOE turned Dawn Video games, not lengthy after which he left the corporate. Then he went indie with an open world OARPG generally known as Hero’s Tune that noticed its growth cancelled, after which he was tapped by Amazon Video games in 2017 to move a brand new on-line recreation’s creation earlier than he vacated that submit in 2023.
Two years later, Smedley has determined to resurface on the MMORPG style’s collective radar because of a teaser Twitter submit that encompasses a picture of himself and a few different devs – particularly former PlanetSide 2 inventive director Matt Higby and former PlanetSide 2 senior artwork director Tramell Isaac, all three of whom are related to a brand new recreation studio generally known as Stealth Mode.
“Can’t wait to disclose what we’ve been engaged on for nearly 2 years,” Smedley writes. “We prefer to make actually huge video games…”
Past that, all now we have for clues are what’s proven on the workstation displays, which seem to have map and character property for a military-style shooter together with the identify and brand for one thing generally known as Distinct Risk. We suspect extra particulars shall be coming quickly, however in the intervening time, that is what we’ve bought.

Can’t wait to disclose what we’ve been engaged on for nearly 2 years. @planetside2 followers may acknowledge Matt Higby and Tramell Isaac. We prefer to make actually huge video games.. pic.twitter.com/trrT5SXNGL
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) March 26, 2025