EA Tiburon vets Volga Aksoy and Jerry Phaneuf have established new studio PixelFoundry down in Orlando, Florida. The two-man team is currently working on a PC title called BlackSpace, which they plan to launch on digital distribution platforms "as soon as possible."

"I personally am a huge fan of games like the Wing Commander series. I also am one of the few that still think RTS when someone mentions Warcraft. If it's done properly, many elements of those two games can be melded," Phaneuf told Joystiq. "We see this as a great opportunity to make the game that we can't wait to play. So we're pretty excited about getting it done soon, but also growing it over time as well."

At its core, BlackSpace is a real-time strategy game, with action elements and an emphasis on economic and "defensive efficiency within the context of a intergalactic mining operation." Players control surface and orbital operations on an asteroid through a low-gravity support vehicle.

"The game has been a long standing project of mostly various tests and snips of art cobbled together with bits of code. We decided to wipe the project clean, get serious, and start working on it full time at the beginning of this year," Aksoy explained when asked how long they'd been working on BlackSpace.

They plan to launch the game, receive "insights on the experience from the community" and build on the core game to make it generally more expansive. "Story line, the macro game, and social portal connectivity" are all targeted for expansion after the initial release.