Armature Studio, LLC is an American

video game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC ...

studio in

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. The studio, founded by former

Retro Studios Retro Studios, Inc. is an American video game developer and subsidiary of Nintendo based in Austin, Texas. The studio is best known for its work on the '' Metroid Prime'' and '' Donkey Kong Country'' series, and has contributed to several o ...

directors Mark Pacini and Todd Keller in September 2008, developed '' Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate'' (2013) and ''

ReCore ''ReCore'' is an Action-adventure game, action-adventure and Platform game, platform video game developed by Comcept and Armature Studio, with assistance from Asobo Studio, and published by Microsoft Studios for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One. ...

'' (2016).

History

In April 2008, after completing '' Metroid Prime 3: Corruption'' in 2007 for

Nintendo is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...

, former game director Mark Pacini, art director Todd Keller, and principal technology engineer Jack Mathews left

to start Armature, which was founded in September 2008. Armature's first game was porting ''

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is a compilation of remastered ports of ''Metal Gear'' video games released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011 and PlayStation Vita in 2012. The compilation contains '' Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty'' and '' Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake ...

'' to the

PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international terri ...

in 2012. In April 2013, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that '' Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate'' would be developed by Armature as their first new work and released for both the

and the

Nintendo 3DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generati ...

on October 25, 2013. The third game developed was the PlayStation Vita edition of '' Injustice: Gods Among Us''. The studio was originally responsible to handle porting '' Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night'' to the PlayStation Vita and

Wii U The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. ...

. This included porting

Unreal Engine 4 Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal (1998 video game), Unreal''. Initially developed for Personal computer, PC first-person shooters, i ...

to both platforms, as they are not supported by the engine officially. Armature was going to make their engine code available to licensed PS Vita and Wii U developers after ''Bloodstained'' finished. However, the game has since been cancelled on both platforms for various reasons as the game's development extended to 2019. In October 2015, the studio announced its first original intellectual property, ''Dead Star'', a space-themed multiplayer online

multidirectional shooter Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charac ...

. It was released on April 5, 2016, for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

and

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 i ...

, but online functionality was disabled on November 1, 2016, and the game is no longer available for purchase. Armature has since collaborated with

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, ...

in providing development support for ''

Fortnite ''Fortnite'' is an online video game developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in three distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: ''Fortnite Battle Royale'', a free-to- ...

'', and made three games for

virtual reality headset A virtual reality headset (or VR headset) is a head-mounted device that provides virtual reality for the wearer. VR headsets are widely used with VR video games but they are also used in other applications, including simulators and trainers. VR ...

s, with ''Fail Factory'' for the Gear VR'', Sports Scramble'' for the

Oculus Quest The Oculus Quest is a virtual reality (VR) headset developed by Oculus, a division of Meta, Inc., released on May 21, 2019. Similar to its predecessor, Oculus Go, it is a standalone device that can run games and software wirelessly under an ...

., and '' Resident Evil 4 VR'' for the Oculus Quest 2. In October 2022, Armature was acquired by

Meta Platforms Meta Platforms, Inc., (file no. 3835815) doing business as Meta and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns Facebook, Insta ...

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Authority control Companies based in Austin, Texas Video game companies established in 2008 Privately held companies based in Texas Video game companies of the United States Video game companies based in Texas Video game development companies 2008 establishments in Texas 2022 mergers and acquisitions Meta Platforms acquisitions