Our regular readers and followers of the MMO genre already know the name of John Smedley. He was the former head of Sony Online Entertainment for almost two decades, overseeing some of the studio’s biggest games right until SOE became Daybreak Games, not long after which he left the company. Then he went indie with an open world OARPG known as Hero’s Song that saw its development cancelled, and then he was tapped by Amazon Games in 2017 to head a new online game’s creation before he vacated that post in 2023.
Two years later, Smedley has decided to resurface on the MMORPG genre’s collective radar thanks to a teaser Twitter post that features a photo of himself and a couple of other devs – specifically former PlanetSide 2 creative director Matt Higby and former PlanetSide 2 senior art director Tramell Isaac, all three of whom are associated with a new game studio known as Stealth Mode.
“Can’t wait to reveal what we’ve been working on for almost 2 years,” Smedley writes. “We like to make really big games…”
Beyond that, all we have for clues are what’s shown on the workstation monitors, which appear to have map and character assets for a military-style shooter along with the name and logo for something known as Distinct Possibility. We suspect more details will be coming soon, but for the time being, this is what we’ve got.
Can’t wait to reveal what we’ve been working on for almost 2 years. @planetside2 fans might recognize Matt Higby and Tramell Isaac. We like to make really big games.. pic.twitter.com/trrT5SXNGL
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) March 26, 2025
