Jason Jones, one of the co-founders of Bungie and a co-creator of Halo and Destiny, has announced his new studio, Stone Kite, which will work on projects across various entertainment mediums. The studio’s first release is One Zero One, a limited-series comic book based on a manuscript written by Jones. Check out some page selects in the gallery below.
The Los Angeles-based studio is a partnership with Margaret Stohl, a Bungie veteran who has written 14 books as well as numerous games and Marvel Comics in her career. She serves as Stone Kite’s CEO. “I’ve spent my career creating books, games, comics, film and television, and I’ve seen how often the medium that tells the first story ends up defining everything that comes after it,” she said. “Stone Kite is about breaking down those old media silos. Instead of starting in one medium and adapting outward, we bring the best global creators from different disciplines into the room from day one to shape the world together. We change the conversation. We never say that’s how it’s traditionally done. We build communities, and we listen to them. That’s how we’re creating worlds that people can explore for decades, in whatever ways they want.”
“I’ve spent my whole life making games, but I’ve always wanted to write,” Jones said. “I used to bike fifteen miles along Lake Michigan to the used bookstores in North Chicago, and bike home again with a backpack full of sci-fi paperbacks. Margie was the first person to believe I could write a book of my own, the first person to read it, and the one person I trusted to help me develop it into epic entertainment that leaves the world a better place.”
One Zero One is a four-part limited comic series about an impending face-off between humans and a rogue army of AI-driven robots. Part 1 is available now in digital form on the Stone Kite website, which is also where you can preorder a physical copy.
Jones co-founded Bungie in 1991 and stayed with it until his position as Chief Vision Officer was reportedly part of the widespread studio layoffs enacted by Sony earlier this year, which today’s Stone Kite announcement would certainly seem to confirm. Jones is regarded as a visionary game designer and rarely gives interviews. In fact, his career-spanning interview with IGN in 2013 was his first interview in over a decade at the time, and he’s rarely spoken publicly since.
Bungie, meanwhile, which had officially ended support for Destiny 2 earlier this year, announced last week that it is in fact not finished yet.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
