Bizarre Creations Limited was a British video game development studio based in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, best known for their

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific goa ...

titles ''

Metropolis Street Racer ''Metropolis Street Racer'' (''MSR'') is a racing video game developed by Bizarre Creations and published by Sega exclusively for Dreamcast. The game was intended to be a Dreamcast launch title, however, due to numerous delays it was not release ...

'' (

Dreamcast The is a home video game console released by Sega on November 27, 1998, in Japan; September 9, 1999, in North America; and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, N ...

) and the follow-up ''Project Gotham Racing'' series (

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

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 generation ...

, mobile phones and

Zune HD The Zune HD is a portable media player in the Zune product family released on September 15, 2009, by Microsoft. It was a direct competitor with Apple's iPod Touch series of mobile devices. It was initially released in 16 and 32 GB capacities. A ...

). The company has also developed games in other genres, including the ''

Geometry Wars ''Geometry Wars'' is a series of top-down multi-directional shooter video games developed by Bizarre Creations, and, later, Lucid Games. Originally published by Microsoft Games Studios, the first title was included as a minigame in '' Project Got ...

'' arcade series, plus the third-person shooters ''

Fur Fighters ''Fur Fighters'' (titled ''Furrballs'' in early development) is a video game developed by Bizarre Creations and published by Acclaim Entertainment for the Dreamcast in 2000, later for Microsoft Windows. The game was first announced as a Dreamcas ...

'' and '' The Club''. Bizarre Creations was acquired by publisher

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

in 2007, and subsequently completed its racer '' Blur'' in May 2010. On 20 January 2011, Activision announced Bizarre Creations would close, and later confirmed the date. Bizarre marked the closure by releasing a retrospective video of its work.

History

Bizarre Creations started as Raising Hell Software, founded by Martyn Chudley.

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

scorned "Hell", and the company went nameless for a short time. In 1994, a pending submission to

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

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 ...

forced the decision of a new name. The founder tentatively left "Weird Concepts" on the submission documentation. Then a staff member used

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms includin ...

's thesaurus, and "Bizarre Creations" stuck. The Bizarre Creations team was initially five strong, and worked on a concept project called "Slaughter". After seeing the demo,

signed the team onto ''

Formula 1 Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

'' for

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

. ''Formula 1'' went on to become the best-selling game in Europe in 1996. On 26 September 2007, publisher

acquired Bizarre Creations for $107.4m; $67.4m immediately payable with a further $40m contingent hitting certain goals over a 5-year period. Activision announced that ''

Project Gotham Racing 4 ''Project Gotham Racing 4'' is a racing video game developed by Bizarre Creations and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released exclusively for the Xbox 360 in October 2007. Development history ''Project Gotham Racing 4'' was accident ...

'' would be Bizarre Creations' last game for

Microsoft Game 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, ...

, and Microsoft did retain the rights for the ''Project Gotham Racing'' franchise. On 16 November 2010, Activision announced it was considering closing Bizarre and "exploring our options regarding the future of the studio, including a potential sale of the business". Activision later stated that no buyer could be found and that the studio would close. The studio would conclude with a two minute farewell video, put together by in-house editor Eamon Urtone. Pete Collier, Ben Ward and Stephen Cakebread of Bizarre Creations founded

mobile game A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...

developer Hogrocket in 2011, and shut it down the following year.

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Authority control British subsidiaries of foreign companies Defunct Activision subsidiaries Defunct companies based in Liverpool Video game companies established in 1988 Video game companies disestablished in 2011 Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies 1988 establishments in England 2011 disestablishments in England 2007 mergers and acquisitions