Toby Gard is best known as the creator of the original Tomb Raider, but he also served as game director on the newly released Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. Now that Yaiba’s out in the wild (with the exception of PC, which arrives tomorrow) Gard has taken the game’s art director, producer, and lead designer and formed a new studio called Tangentlemen. The startup will focus on “experimental game design,” and like many other AAA-turned-indie-devs, their debut will be a horror game.

Or rather, a “an existential, surreal horror trip.” More after the jump.

All we know right now is the game is called Daedalus.

The reasoning behind this dramatic shift in focus is money. Specifically, how much AAA games cost to produce these days (somewhere between ‘too much’ and ‘are you kidding me?’

“The rocketing costs of AAA development led to a creative stagnation in games until the recent explosion of the indie scene. We have formed Tangentlemen to take some creative risks and trust our belief that there is an audience who want fun experiences that don’t fall comfortably inside predefined marketing boxes.” Gard said in a press release.

“At Tangentlemen, we see each creative dilemma – no matter how challenging as a dance with the devil, so to say. We live for those challenges. By relying on our collective experience, mutual respect, and off-kilter personalities, we’re able to twerk it out into new exciting thematic territory.” added Cory Davis, Tangentlemen Co-Creative Director. “Our solutions are not what you’d expect. They’re often weird, or even absurd, with strong gestures that challenge the status quo. Our games are extreme in their thematic, narrative, and mechanical design. I seriously can’t wait to tell you exactly what we’re up to right now!”

It’s still entirely a mystery to me, but I’m always open to new horror games, experimental or otherwise.