Phoenix Labs alum Jeanne-Marie Owens and Jesse Houston have formed Critical Path Games.

The new studio, co-located in Vancouver, intends to create a new video game genre.

Owens’ professional history includes a nine-year stint at Phoenix Labs, where she last served as chief operating officer. She also worked at EA as a production coordinator for three years.

Meanwhile, Houston co-founded Phoenix Labs and served as its CEO since its foundation in 2014. They previously worked at Riot Games as senior producer and senior product manager.

In the announcement, Houston said, “We have been working together for more than 15 years at this point, and as we came out of Phoenix Labs and reflected on the last decade, we found ourselves yearning to take those learnings and apply them to a new problem set.

“In reflection, we had felt our most effective and inspired in the earlier years with a small, co-located team, tackling the new and difficult problem of cross-platform play and developing a game for an underserved audience.”