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After an eight-year absence, Volition founder, Mike Kulas, has returned to the studio as general manager.
Kulas was at Volition – which he originally founded 18 years ago as Parallax Software – until 2011. Kulas says he "goofed off" for the first four years he was retired, then spent time working at Revival Productions on Overload, the spiritual successor to Parallax’s Descent. But now that project is now "winding down", Kulas was looking for another challenge.
"The opportunity just presented itself," Kulas told GamesIndustry.biz. "At first I thought it was crazy, I’d been away for eight years, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I’d never find anything I’d want to do as much as being here.
"There’s nothing I’d rather do until I reach retirement – true retirement, this time – when I’m too feeble to get a job anywhere else… It’s great seeing people I haven’t seen in a long time. People keep coming up and saying ‘I’m glad you’re back’, and that feels good. I hope they’re glad I’m back a few years from now."
"Mike founded everything, he set the tone," said studio development director Jim Boone. "This place is his vision. Our culture comes from Mike. He is Volition, he’s one of us. So the opportunity for him to come back and serve as the GM, which is what he has always done, is perfect.
"It’s not a case where you bring someone in and have to get them used to what it’s like working here, or used to the peculiarities of Volition because they’ve got their own way of doing things — you don’t have to do any of that with Mike, because he knows all of it. We took our cues from Mike. So for him to be able to hop in and just get going… It’s only been a couple of days now but it feels like he’s fallen right back into the rhythm. It’s almost like he hasn’t been gone."
