Mark Pacini, Todd Keller and Jack Mathews, respectively the former Game Director, Art Director and Principal Technology Engineer of the Metroid Prime series, had left Retro Studios in April. Today the team also announced an exclusive publishing deal with Electronic Arts--but the deal is a bit unconventional.

Speaking to Kotaku, Pacini revealed that Armature will join EA's Blueprint Division. Rather than make ordinary studio games, Armature will spend its time developing prototypes. Once a prototype is chosen for full-fledged development, that work will be moved to another studio while Armature's small staff remains on board as directors.

"EA approached us with this really interesting business model of creating a small studio that is only comprised of industry veterans," Pacini said. "The goal is to create new IP [intellectual property] with a very, very small team and to produce a game without having to grow that team."

"We are interested to see how it goes past the prototype stage," he continued. "Our studio is the grand experiment. It's kind of a really different take on how to make these larger scale games."

Armature is now hiring.