Irrational co-founder developing F2P title

Card Hunter currently in development for browsers.

Irrational Games co-founder Jon Chey has set up his own studio to develop a free-to-play PC strategy title called Card Hunter, according to Eurogamer.

Chey describes the game as "a board game/card game hybrid that you play on a computer, mixed with an RPG."

"The best way to describe it is, imagine I take an MMO, and every time you fight a monster, instead of playing a timer game with pull downs and buttons that you click, you're playing a turn-based strategy game."

Chey added: "You have little pieces on a board, and you play cards to move those pieces around, and that’s the battle you fight. And at the end of the battle you win some treasure, which you then use to trick your characters like you do in an MMO, but those characters are actually pieces in the board game."

Chey is currently being assisted by additional Irrational Games veterans, such as System Shock designer Dorian Hart, Freedom Force art director Ben Lee, and Might and Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield.

Card Hunter is planned as browser-based, but the studio is considering a downloadable client as well. The game is scheduled for launch late 2011.

Jon Chey formed Irrational Games with BioShock creator Ken Levine in 1997.