Meet the Crew - Gray
Naetyr is like a Viking crew barreling across the ocean on a massive longboat. We sail the seas of software development with a strong wind at our back and the celestial bodies to guide us. Each of us has our role be it plotting the course, relaying messages between ships, or rowing when conditions call for it. We have the people who built the ship, and the men who etched patterns into the wood and painted the sails. Then, at the head of it all, we have a pacesetter beating the drums, urging us ever forward to our destination. For us, the man at the helm is Gray Newell.
Gray is our Lead Designer, Co-Founder, and CEO. His brain birthed the ideas that brought the whole team together. He’s usually a stoic leader, passing along bits of encouragement or guiding people in the right direction without much inflection. However, his tone totally changes whenever we talk about the design of “Fury.” We can see the desire in his eyes, and hear the drive in his voice. Passion like that is incredibly contagious, and it gets the whole crew here excited for another day of putting this project together.
Gray grew up in Seattle and was engaged with the world of video game production from a very young age. His father, Gabe Newell, is an industry veteran and co-founder of Valve. This meant Gray was raised around a massive team of talented individuals who each left a mark on him as he grew up. Gray took those lessons to heart and started learning more about games- both through contact with people at Valve and by investing time in playing as many games as he could.
Gray took inspiration from games like World of Warcraft, Titanfall, and Star Citizen to create a solid foundation for the team to build from. Using concepts from so many games might make “Fury” seem like a Frankenstein’s monster, an amalgamation pieced together from all the best parts of some incredible games. However, it’s the fresh mechanics, things like the new armor and loadout systems (which you’ll hear more about soon), that brought the lightning and got the heart of this project beating.
“Fury is the continuous evolution and iteration of the ideas I’ve had since I was a child daydreaming about the future,” Gray said, “Fury is designed to be, as its name implies, an emotional experience in a new world, a world that reflects the possibilities of the years to come, and the dreams of a starry-eyed kid.”
