Deep Silver Dambuster Studios
| Deep Silver Dambuster Studios | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Limited |
| founding | 1999 (as Free Radical Design) |
| Seat |
Nottingham , UK
|
| Number of employees | 130 |
| Branch | Entertainment software |
| Website | Official website |
Deep Silver Dambuster Studios is a UK computer game development studio based in Nottingham . It was founded in 1999 as Free Radical Design and became known for its Timesplitters game series and the stealth action game Second Sight . After bankruptcy, the company was taken over by the German developer Crytek in 2009 and renamed Crytek UK . After Crytek's financial difficulties, the studio was taken over by Koch Media in 2014 and received its current name.
history
The Free Radical Design studio was founded by former employees of the Rare development studio . While at Rare, David Doak , Steve Ellis, Karl Hilton, Graeme Norgate and Lee Ray worked on the first-person shooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark for Nintendo 64 . Between the end of 1998 and the beginning of 1999, the team left Rare to start their own business with Free Radical Design. The studio opened in April 1999 and its first release was Timesplitters for the PlayStation 2 in 2000. The game was best known for its fast-paced gameplay and its focus on multiplayer rather than plot. Timesplitters drew more attention mainly because of the developer’s previous involvement in the critically acclaimed GoldenEye 007 . The successor, Timesplitters 2 , became one of the best-rated first-person shooters for the PlayStation 2.
On December 18, 2008, it was reported that the studio had been closed. It was later announced that the company had filed for bankruptcy, but 40 of the original 185 employees could continue to be employed. On February 3, 2009, Haze author Rob Yescombe stated that Free Radical Design had been taken over by German developer Crytek , which was finally confirmed by Crytek the following day. The studio was renamed Crytek UK. After the developer Swordfish Studios had to close in 2010, Crytek took over several employees. Also in 2010, Crytek invested £ 50 million to relocate its subsidiary studio and moved from the suburb of Sandiacre to new office space within the Southreef complex in downtown Nottingham. In September 2011, Crytek announced that the Nottingham studio was working on the sequel to the first-person shooter Homefront for the US publisher THQ . After the bankruptcy and breakup of THQ, Crytek took over the trademark rights for US $ 500,000 and continued the development under its own responsibility. Over the years, the studio has traditionally maintained a good relationship with the City of Nottingham, including its support for the Gamecity Festival and the acquisition of numerous graduates from Nottingham Trent University .
In June 2014, the game magazine GameStar reported about major financial problems at Crytek. Accordingly, the company is directly threatened with bankruptcy, and numerous employees have therefore already left the company. At the beginning of July, Crytek UK employees stopped working on Homefront: The Revolution due to a lack of pay . On July 30th, it was finally announced that Koch Media had taken over the studio and the trademark rights to Homefront through its game label Deep Silver . It was announced that the studio would continue the work under the new name Deep Silver Dambuster Studios. The rights to the Timesplitters series initially remained in the possession of Crytek, and in 2018 these were also acquired by Deep Silver.
Dambuster Studios is currently working on Dead Island 2 .
Published games
As a Free Radical Design
| year | game | Publisher | genre | platform | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS2 | Xbox | NGC | Win | PS3 | X360 | |||||||
| 2000 | Timesplitters | Eidos Interactive | First person shooter | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | |||
| 2002 | Timesplitters 2 | Eidos Interactive | First person shooter | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | |||
| 2004 | Second sight | Codemasters | Action adventure , stealth shooter | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | |||
| 2005 | Timesplitters: Future Perfect | Electronic Arts | First person shooter | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | |||
| 2008 | Haze | Ubisoft | First person shooter | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | |||
| 2008 | Star Wars Battlefront III (discontinued) | LucasArts | Third person shooter | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
As Crytek UK
| year | game | Publisher | genre | annotation | platform | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS3 | X360 | Win | PS4 | XBO | |||||||||
| 2011 | Crysis 2 | Electronic Arts | First person shooter | Only Multiplayer -Part | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ||||
| 2013 | Crysis 3 | Electronic Arts | First person shooter | In collaboration with Crytek Frankfurt | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | ||||
As Deep Silver Dambuster Studios
| year | game | Publisher | genre | platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Homefront: The Revolution | Deep Silver | First person shooter | Windows , Linux , macOS , PlayStation 4 , Xbox One |
Web links
- Free radical design . Archived from the original on February 23, 2008. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
- Deep Silver Dambuster Studios at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Kaiser Hwang: Free Radical: The Face That Launched A Thousand Games . In: PSM . June 2007, pp. 18-19.
- ↑ gamerankings.com
- ↑ Kris Graft: Source: Free Radical Locked Up . In: Edge . December 18, 2008. Archived from the original on April 3, 2013. Retrieved on December 18, 2008.
- ↑ 185 jobs at risk at computer games company . This is Nottingham. Archived from the original on March 24, 2010. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
- ↑ Robert Purchese: Admin Confirms Free Radical demise . Eurogamer. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
- ↑ Emma Boyes: Crytek Purchases Free Radical, Says Company Scriptwriter . 1up. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
- ↑ # 93; = 141 & tx_ttnews [backPid] = 1 & cHash = 57a43f3118 crytek.com ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Michael McWhertor: Crytek Buys Free Radical . Kotaku. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
- ↑ a b Gaming firm Crytek to be first tenant at Nottingham's Southreef
- ↑ http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-20-crytek-developing-homefront-2
- ↑ THQ sells its brands to the competition at pcgames.de
- ↑ Crytek was apparently on the verge of bankruptcy in April 2014, called on June 22, 2014
- ↑ http://www.golem.de/news/homefront-2-entwickler-bei-crytek-uk-legen-arbeit-nieder-1407-107653.html
- ↑ Golem.de: Crytek sells Homefront and its studio to Koch Media , accessed on July 30, 2014
- ↑ Samit Sarkar: Crytek still owns TimeSplitters, since it wasn't part of Deep Silver's Homefront deal. In: polygon . August 6, 2014, accessed February 27, 2020 .
- ↑ Stefanie Fogel, Stefanie Fogel: Deep Silver Acquires 'TimeSplitters,' 'Second Sight' IP. In: Variety. August 15, 2018, accessed February 27, 2020 .
- ↑ Deep Silver Dambuster Studios takes over Dead Island 2 development. August 14, 2019, Retrieved May 18, 2020 (American English).
