Sega Europe announced that it has promoted two key executives at Creative Assembly, the United Kingdom studio behind the Total War series of real-time strategy games.

Tim Heaton will assume a new role as Sega Europe’s chief studio officer. He was formerly in a bridge role between Sega Europe and Creative Assembly as executive vice president of studios and studio director respectively. He is also a former studio director at Creative Assembly.

Gareth Edmondson, previously chief operating officer of Creative Assembly, will now fully step into the studio director role, overseeing the continuing growth of the U.K.’s oldest and largest development studio, with 650 employees total.

As chief studio officer at Sega Europe, Heaton will oversee the continued development of its stable: Creative Assembly, Sports Interactive, Relic Entertainment, Amplitude Studios, Hardlight, and the recently acquired Two Point Studios. He will drive forward the continuing collaboration with a focus on shared skills and learning to further uplift services and quality, while continuing to advise the wider business on all development matters.

Image Credit: Creative Assembly

Heaton said in a statement that Sega Europe and its studios have 4,500 years of collective developer experience among its staff, and harnessing their knowledge is a big part of growing the whole business. At a Sega Dev Day in late 2019, the studios gathered for that purpose. Heaton said his aim is to continue to cultivate this sort of philosophy across the organization to the benefit of the games, people’s skills and experiences, and operations.

At Creative Assembly, Edmondson’s new role as studio director will see him take full ownership of the studio’s operations across its three locations: in Horsham, U.K. and Sofia, Bulgaria.

Edmondson said in a statement that it’s a pivotal moment in Creative Assembly’s 33rd year of game development, as the company has a new first-person shooter intellectual property on the horizon, and the Total War franchise growing on multiple platforms and in markets like China. He said the studio is fully focused on the next phase and he is thrilled to be in a position to maintain that upwards trajectory by building on the studio’s heritage and supporting the talented team.