4A Games Limited is a Ukrainian-Maltese video game developer based in

Sliema Sliema ( mt, Tas-Sliema ) is a town located on the northeast coast of Malta in the Northern Harbour District. It is a major residential and commercial area and a centre for shopping, bars, dining, and café life. It is also the most densely po ...

, Malta. The company was founded in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

, Ukraine, in 2006 by three developers who departed from

GSC Game World GSC Game World is a Ukrainian video game developer based in Prague. Founded in Kyiv in 1995 by Sergiy Grygorovych, it is best known for the '' Cossacks'' and '' S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'' series of games. GSC Game World was the first company in Ukraine ...

. In 2014, 4A Games moved its headquarters to Sliema, wherein the Kyiv office was retained as a sub-studio. The company is best known for developing the ''

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urb ...

'' video game series.

History

Foundation

4A Games was founded by former developers from

: Andrew Prokhorov, Oles Shyshkovtsov, and Alexander Maximchuk; they, together with Sergei Karmalsky, formed the core team of '' S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl'', which was in development at GSC in the early and mid-2000s. Prokhorov had disliked that Sergiy Grygorovych, the

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...

(CEO) of GSC, prioritized money over his employees, withholding royalties for games the company had produced. The situation came to a high point when the two fell out over wages in 2006, leading Prokhorov and two of the company's lead

programmers A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

—Shyshkovtsov and Maximchuk—to leave the company and found a new studio, 4A Games, with the intention to treat its employees better than Grygorovych did.

''Metro'' series

The company's first game was ''Metro 2033'', an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Russian author

Dmitry Glukhovsky Dmitry Alekseyevich Glukhovsky (russian: Дми́трий Алексе́евич Глухо́вский, born 12 June 1979) is a Russian author and journalist best known for the science fiction novel ''Metro 2033'' and its sequels. As a journal ...

that was announced in 2009. The game was released in March 2010 on the

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

and Microsoft Windows to generally favorable reviews. Following their initial success, 4A Games began work on the sequel, '' Metro: Last Light'', which was announced during the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo convention. The game faced several issues during its production, whose release date was delayed from 2012 to 2013. The most significant setback for the company occurred in January 2013, when the game's publisher, THQ, closed down after declaring bankruptcy and auctioning off its

intellectual properties Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

. The publishing rights to the ''Metro 2033'' franchise, including the sequel, were sold to

Koch Media Plaion (formerly Koch Media) is a German-Austrian media company headquartered in Höfen, Tyrol, Austria, with an operating subsidiary based in Planegg, Germany. The company was founded in 1994 by Franz Koch and Klemens Kundratitz. The company ...

for $5.8 million on 22 January, allowing the company to finish making the game. ''Metro: Last Light'' was finally released on 14 May 2013, and was published by Koch Media's video game label, Deep Silver. On 30 March 2014, a remastered re-release of both ''Metro'' titles, under the name ''Metro Redux'', was leaked, and confirmed the day after. The compilation was released in August 2014 for eighth-generation platforms. In 2017, the company released a

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

game, ''Arktika.1''. During the 2017 E3 convention, at the Microsoft press conference on 11 June 2017, a new game, '' Metro Exodus'', was announced for a 2018 release. Gameplay was shown to both announce the game and act as a graphical showcase for Microsoft's native 4K-focused update to the

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

hardware, Xbox One X. The game was released in 2019.

Expansion

On 12 May 2014, amidst the Ukrainian crisis and following the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, 4A Games announced that they were to expand by opening a new studio in and moving their headquarters to

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

to allow for easier operations inside the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

, with the Kyiv studio continuing to operate for

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

an operations. The company was acquired by

Saber Interactive Saber Interactive Inc. is an American video game developer and video game publisher, publisher founded in 2001 with headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Saber was acquired by Embracer Group in February 2020, making the studio a direct subs ...

under the

Embracer Group Embracer Group AB (formerly Nordic Games Licensing AB and THQ Nordic AB) is a Swedish video game and media holding company based in Karlstad. The company was established under the name Nordic Games Licensing in 2011 as part of Nordic Games Grou ...

for approximately in August 2020. The publisher of the ''Metro'' series, Deep Silver, was already a part of the Embracer Group via

, making the acquisition a sensible one for both groups. In the wake of Russian forces threatening to attack Ukraine in February 2022, Saber Interactive stated that all employees at 4A's Kyiv studio can relocate to other Saber-owned companies abroad if they choose to. Like other Ukrainian video game studios, it became involved in the campaign to organize funds and support for Ukraine.

Games developed

Notes

References

External links

* {{Embracer Group Saber Interactive Ukrainian companies established in 2006 Sliema Video game companies established in 2006 Video game companies of Malta Video game companies of Ukraine Video game development companies 2020 mergers and acquisitions