Evolution Studios Ltd. was a British

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 ...

based in Runcorn,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

. The company was founded in 1999 by

Martin Kenwright Martin Kenwright is the founder of British-based virtual and augmented reality innovation company vTime Limited, digital media, entertainment and technology company Starship, and video game development studios Digital Image Design (DID) and Ev ...

and

Ian Hetherington Ian Hetherington (June 1952 – 14 December 2021) was a British businessman who co-founded computer games developer Psygnosis. Biography He was a co-founder of Psygnosis, a company that developed computer games. Along with Jonathan Ellis, Hether ...

, following the purchase of their studio

Digital Image Design Digital Image Design (DID) was a British video game developer founded by Martin Kenwright and Phillip Allsopp in 1989. It was originally based in Runcorn, Cheshire in England. The company specialized in aircraft simulator games, mostly published ...

's publisher Ocean Software by Infogrames. Kenwright then left Digital Image Design with six members of staff to form Evolution Studios.

Company history

Then based in Frodsham,

, it developed a racing demo on PC, depicting multiple rally cars racing on a circuit with cockpit views, which was subsequently picked up by

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

as it was interested in a

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

game based on the World Rally Championship licence. Both Evolution and their satellite studio,

Bigbig Studios Bigbig Studios was a British video game developer based in Leamington Spa, England. It was founded in 2001 by a core team of four former Codemasters employees. The company was set up with the help of parent company Evolution Studios. Bigbig Stu ...

, in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

were acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in September 2007. At this point, Kenwright and Hetherington left the company, with its co-founder Mick Hocking taking over, running Evolution, Bigbig and Studio Liverpool as Group Studio Director. Hocking was subsequently promoted to Vice President of the Studio Group in April 2011. The developer's last game was ''

Driveclub ''Driveclub'' is a racing video game developed by Evolution Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 4. It was announced during the PlayStation 4 press conference on 20 February 2013, and, after several delays, was rel ...

''. It was scheduled as a PlayStation 4 launch title, although it was ultimately delayed, until October 2014. They claim they had trademarked the name of the game almost 10 years ago, but were waiting for the technology to create their vision of the game. On 23 March 2015, 55 staff members were cut from Evolution Studio, which sources say is approximately half the studio. The redundancies have been described by Sony as a way to focus the studio on developing Driveclub as a service. On 22 March 2016, Sony announced that Evolution Studios was closed. On 11 April 2016, the development team joined Codemasters as Codemasters EVO, which would be renamed as Codemasters Cheshire. After the disappointing sales of their next game ''

Onrush ''Onrush'' (stylized as ONRUSH) is a racing game developed by Codemasters and published by Deep Silver for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It was developed by Codemasters and the team from Evolution Studios. Gameplay ''Onrush'' is an arcade-sty ...

'', several members of the Codemasters Cheshire development division were let go in redundancies, including game director Paul Rustchynsky and the division was shifted to a support role for other Codemasters titles. In May 2022, the team at Codemasters Cheshire was merged into Criterion Games, an EA subsidiary.

Games developed

References

External links

* Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game companies established in 1999 Video game companies disestablished in 2016 1999 establishments in England 2016 disestablishments in England PlayStation Studios 2007 mergers and acquisitions Video game development companies Defunct companies of England Runcorn {{UK-videogame-company-stub