Hamburg-based developer Fishlabs Entertainment has kicked off the new year with four new hires, adding three developers to the studio's production team and one senior MMO designer.

Anthony Beels (pictured) will fill the latter role, joining Fishlabs from a position as senior game designer at Funcom Montreal.

Beels' previous experience also includes a stint as senior game master at Activision Blizzard, and at Fishlabs, he'll be charged with the creation of a new, unannounced MMO project – the studio's first foray into multiplayer gaming.

Meanwhile, Thorsten Kohnhorst, Katja Alsleben and David Leinhäuser will bolster the Fishlabs production team, acting as senior programmer, tools programmer and R&D developer respectively.

Fresh blood

"We have got grand plans for 2013," said Fishlabs CEO Michael Schade of the hires.

"We do not only have a lot of very interesting projects in the pipeline, but we are also very eager to expand our position as a world-leading developer of high-end premium games for iOS and Android onto the free-to-play market."

"In addition, we also want to upgrade our very own ABYSS engine and make it even more powerful, " Schade continued.

"After all, it is an indispensable tool that enables us to develop our games beyond the limits of platform boundaries and without the aid of any middleware.

"In order to put these plans into practice, it is important that we get new talent on board and enlarge our team a steady but healthy pace."