A pair of former employees from Blizzard and Relic have launched a new studio called Molten Games. To do what you ask? To make a AAA, free-to-play MMO for PC of course. The project already has the financial blessing of NCSoft.

Who are the pair behind the new studio? Paul Della Britta is the company's new chief product officer and formerly worked at Blizzard as their senior director of global community development and eSports. Working alongside him at Molten now as vice president of creative development is Blaine Smith, former lead designer at Relic for Company of Heroes Online.

Della Bitta recently spoke to GamesIndustry about the direction he hopes to take Molten in. He said, "We remember the games and the dev studios back in the day. We played a lot of Valve and Blizzard games before I worked there. These were studios that were made up of gamers just making great games they enjoyed playing. And we're trying to follow in those footsteps."

Since forming earlier this year Molten have now formed a team of 30 experienced members and hopes to continue to grow to at least 60 staffers by the end of 2013. Once Molten's new mystery project has launched Della Bitta hopes to expand to 100 staff members. The developer said, "There have been a lot of start-ups around mobile and social but a lot of people around the industry, especially people who'd been working on more core games, were looking for an opportunity to join a start-up and be part of a small team."

Taek Jin Kim, CEO at NCsoft, was allegedly eager to back the new project. According to Della Bitta, "That was actually one of the easier processes of starting the company," he continued, "And honestly, we know we're lucky in that regard, because we know it is difficult to raise money."