Capcom Game Studio Vancouver, Inc. (formerly Blue Castle Games Inc.), more commonly known as Capcom Vancouver, was a Canadian

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

owned by

Capcom is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

with minority stake partnership by

Microsoft Studios Xbox Game Studios (previously known as Microsoft Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, and Microsoft Games) is an American video game publisher and part of the Microsoft Gaming division based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, ...

. As Blue Castle Games, the company was the creator of several successful

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

sports video game A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (s ...

s, including ''

The Bigs ''The Bigs'' (stylized as ''The BIGS'') is an arcade-style baseball video game for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Wii and PlayStation Portable. It was released in June 2007 in North America, and in October in the PAL region (Wii onl ...

'', '' MLB Front Office Manager'' and ''

The Bigs 2 ''The Bigs 2'' (known in Europe and Australia as ''The Bigs 2 Baseball'') is a baseball sports video game developed by Blue Castle Games and published by 2K Sports for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Wii, and PlayStation Portable. ...

''. They have also developed the ''

Dead Rising is a series of action-adventure games created by Keiji Inafune. It was originally developed by Capcom until Capcom Vancouver took over developing the franchise. As of March 31, 2022, the game series has sold 15 million units worldwide and is ...

'' series. Blue Castle Games was acquired by Capcom after the release of ''

Dead Rising 2 ''Dead Rising 2'' is a 2010 action-adventure game developed by Blue Castle Games and published by Capcom. It was released between September and October 2010 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. It is a sequel to ''Dead Rising' ...

'', and renamed Capcom Vancouver, where they continued to work on the ''Dead Rising'' series. Capcom announced the closure of the studio in September 2018, cancelling ''Dead Rising 5'' and moving other development to their Japan-based studios.

History

The company was formed on July 4, 2005 in

Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard I ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

by three core founders with thirty five years of combined video game experience. Starting with only twelve staff and one game (''

''), the company grew to 200 people with 3 shipped titles. In February 2008, Blue Castle Games won the award for Best New Video Game Company at the 2008 Elan Awards for ''

'', in a tie with another local Vancouver company. A wide number of developers in Capcom Vancouver were formerly of

EA Vancouver EA Vancouver (formerly known as EA Burnaby, then EA Canada) is a Canadian video game developer located in Burnaby, British Columbia. The development studio opened as Distinctive Software in January 1983, and is also Electronic Arts's largest a ...

, located only a couple blocks away from their studio. Yoshinori Ono was the studio director from 2011 to 2014. In February 2018, Capcom had laid off about 30% of the studio, but had continued to use Capcom Vancouver to support ''Puzzle Fighter'' on mobile and ongoing work for ''Dead Rising'' games. On September 18, 2018, Capcom announced the closure of the studio on reviewing the state of development of current projects. While a skeleton crew will remain through January 2019 to complete certain projects, remaining development work was either cancelled or transitions to Capcom's Japan studios. Capcom estimated the cost of the cancelled projects equated to about (approximately ).

Games developed

''Blue Castle Games''

''Capcom Vancouver''

Cancelled games

* ''Knights of Aegis'' (2017) *''Dead Rising 5'' (2018)

References

External links

* {{Authority control Capcom Companies based in Burnaby Canadian companies established in 2005 Canadian companies disestablished in 2018 Video game companies established in 2005 Video game companies disestablished in 2018 Defunct video game companies of Canada Video game development companies 2005 establishments in British Columbia 2018 disestablishments in British Columbia Defunct companies of British Columbia Canadian subsidiaries of foreign companies