Playground Games
| Playground Games Limited | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Limited |
| founding | 2010 |
| Seat |
Royal Leamington Spa , England UK |
| management | Gavin Raeburn |
| Number of employees | 200+ (2017) |
| Branch | Software development |
| Website | www.playground-games.com |
Playground Games is a British development studio from Royal Leamington Spa , England , which was founded in 2010 by long-time racing game developers. The company is known for the development of Forza Horizon , a series offshoot of the larger Forza series from Microsoft and its games division Xbox Game Studios . Playground Games has been a Microsoft subsidiary since June 2018.
history
In November 2009, former Codemasters employees Trevor Williams and Nick Wheelwright announced the creation of a new studio for 2010. The founders also included Codemasters developers Gavin Raeburn and Ralph Fulton. Many employees had previously worked on racing games at British development studios such as Codemasters, Bizarre Creations , Criterion Games , Ubisoft Reflections , Slightly Mad Studios , Black Rock Studio , Juice Games , Sony Liverpool .
At the Microsoft Showcase event in California in 2012, Playground Games announced their first own project, Forza Horizon . The title was developed in cooperation with Turn 10 Studios and published by Microsoft on October 23, 2012 for the Xbox 360 and later also for the Xbox One . In September 2014, the studio released Forza Horizon 2 for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One and received good reviews. Forza Horizon 3 was released on September 27, 2016 for Xbox One and Windows 10 and scored 91 on Metacritic , making it one of the highest-rated Xbox One-exclusive games. Microsoft took over the company in 2018.
On June 10, 2018, during E3 2018, it was announced that Playground Games had been acquired by Microsoft and is now part of Microsoft Studios (now known as Xbox Game Studios ).
Games
| title | Platform (s) | Initial release |
|---|---|---|
| Forza Horizon | Xbox 360 | 2012 |
| Forza Horizon 2 | Xbox 360, Xbox One | 2014 |
| Forza Horizon 3 | Windows, Xbox One | 2016 |
| Forza Horizon 4 | Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | 2018 |
| Fable | Windows, Xbox Series X | in development |
Web links
- Official website
- PlayGround Games at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Playground Games opening second studio for open world game. In: GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved November 29, 2019 .
- ^ Williams and Wheelwright return with Playground Games. In: MCV / Develop. Retrieved December 1, 2019 (UK English).
- ↑ TWK: Fast Track. Retrieved December 1, 2019 (UK English).
- ^ Forza Horizon announcement . Retrieved March 5, 2012.
- ↑ Forza Horizon 3 ( English ) In: Playground Games . Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ↑ Forza Horizon 3 . Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ↑ Metacritic lists Forza Horizon 3 as the seventh best rated game of 2016 (English) . In: On MSFT , December 22, 2016. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ^ Matthew Field: Microsoft buys UK game studio behind Forza Horizon . In: The Telegraph . June 11, 2018, ISSN 0307-1235 ( telegraph.co.uk [accessed December 1, 2019]).
- ↑ Christopher Grant: Microsoft has five (!) New internal studios. June 10, 2018, accessed February 11, 2020 .