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 Runcorn is an industrial town and cargo port in the Borough of Halton in Cheshire, England. Its population in 2011 was 61,789. The town is in the southeast of the Liverpool City Region, with Liverpool to the northwest across the River Mersey. ...

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 tow ...

. The company was founded in 1999 by Martin Kenwright and Ian Hetherington, 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 Ocean Software Ltd was a British software development company that became one of the biggest European video game developers and publishers of the 1980s and 1990s. The company was founded by David Ward and Jon Woods and was based in Manchester. ...

Infogrames Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA) is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. It is the current owner of the Atari brand through Atari Interactive. ...

. Kenwright then left Digital Image Design with six members of staff to form Evolution Studios.

Company history

Then based in

Frodsham Frodsham is a market town, civil parish, and electoral ward in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. Its population was 8,982 in 2001, increasing to 9,077 at the 2011 Census. It is s ...

, 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 ...

game based on the

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...

licence. Both Evolution and their satellite studio, Bigbig Studios, 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-Avo ...

were acquired by

Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal co ...

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 Psygnosis Limited (known as SCE Studio Liverpool or simply Studio Liverpool from 1999) was a British video game developer and publisher headquartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. Founded in 1984 by Ian Hetherington, Jonathan Ell ...

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 The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts. Founded by brothers Richard and David Darling in Oct ...

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-s ...

'', 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 Criterion Games is a British video game developer based in Guildford. Founded in January 1996 as a division of Criterion Software, it was owned by Canon Inc. until Criterion Software was sold to Electronic Arts in October 2004. Many of Crit ...

, 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