Tempo Storm and industry veterans create strategy card game The Bazaar

Tempo Storm, the American esports organization with players in Magic: The Gathering and other games, has hired prominent industry veterans to develop an upcoming strategy card game, The Bazaar. Working alongside Tempo Storm CEO and Founder Andrey “Reynad” Yanyuk are industry veterans Gregory Marques, Stephen Dewhurst, Erin Krell and Eric Flannum.

According to Reynad, The Bazaar is a new strategy game that takes place in an intergalactic marketplace. It’s a fantasy world where different characters, cultures and technologies come together. Reyard also noted that the game monetizes primarily through cosmetics.

A roster of industry veterans

Marques previously worked on Wizards of the Coast and Amazon as a game designer. Meanwhile, Dewhurst also worked at Amazon alongside Monolith Productions and Microsoft.

As for Krell, she will become Tempo Storm’s COO and work directly with Reynad to produce and ship the flagship game. Previously, Krell managed franchises such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Halo, Resident Evil and Minecraft.

“This is an amazing collection of very talented and creative people,” Krell said. “I’m very excited about the future of The Bazaar and the growth of Tempo Games development studio. There’s so much potential here, and I know we can accomplish incredible things.”

Flannum is Tempo Storm’s new design director. He worked on games such as Starcraft, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Guild Wars I and II, Diablo, The Bard’s Tale and Sacrifice.

“I think the potential for The Bazaar to explore new avenues of play within the card and autobattle genres is tremendous,” Flannum said. Additionally, he said that he cannot wait for players to experience the game, its world and its characters.

The Bazaar and the future of Tempo Storm esports

“Though Tempo is historically known for esports and competitive gaming, and we don’t have plans to cut any of our players (e.g., Axe, PVDDR, Noire), we’re shifting our focus away from the esports scene and more toward game development (i.e., The Bazaar) and media productions (e.g., HIVEMIND),” Lanson Ho’opai, Tempo Storm Content Coordinator, confirmed in an email.

Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering, Shadowverse, FIFA and Super Smash Bros. are a few esports that Tempo Storm players have competed in.

“The Bazaar takes the best elements from auto-battlers, rogue-like deck builders and digital card games, but doesn’t neatly fall into any of those categories,” Reynad said in the introduction video for the game.

The Bazaar is now available for pre-order on the game’s official website.