Square Enix picks up Hyper Light Drifter’s lead designer

One of the minds behind the recently-released and absolutely gorgeous Hyper Light Drifter will be putting his abilities to work for a much bigger studio.

Teddy Diefenbach, the lead designer on Hyper Light Drifter, has joined Square Enix Montreal as a creative director. There, he’ll be working with Renard Bédard, best known for his work on Fez and Capybara’s Xbox One title Below.

In a blogpost announcing the move, Diefenbach talks about his love for the Montreal-based studio’s work on games like Hitman GO and Lara Croft GO. He talks about being wary of the pitfalls of working with a big company, but says he thinks that the company knows how to work on small projects in a big company environment the right way.

It’s unclear what the two will be working on at the studio.

As for Hyper Light Drifter‘s future, Diefenbach says he’s going to be “ushering through our co-op feature” before he leaves in a few weeks, and that the console ports are still underway. He also adds that he’ll be consulting on decisions on the game in the future.

Hyper Light Drifter‘s unique visual style and retro aesthetic have won it lots of fans, and the game’s success has shown that Diefenbach knows how to lead a project on a narrow budget, so if he’s given the necessary freedom he should be able to come up with something interesting.