Exient Limited is a British

video game developer A video game developer is 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 business with em ...

and

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

based in Kings Langley, England. Developing for handheld, mobile,

console Console may refer to: Computing and video games * System console, a physical device to operate a computer ** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device ** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...

, VR and PC platforms, Having studios in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

, Exient grew a name for designing and developing popular series' games to portable systems. It is known for its ports of various games in the ''

Madden NFL ''Madden NFL'' (known as ''John Madden Football'' until 1993) is an American football sports video game series developed by EA Orlando for EA Sports. The franchise, named after Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and commentator John Madden, has ...

'', ''

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

'', '' Need for Speed'', and ''

Tiger Woods PGA Tour ''PGA Tour'' is a series of golf video games developed and published by Electronic Arts - and later their EA Sports sub-label - since 1990. The series primarily features courses featured on the U.S. PGA Tour, and other notable courses (such as ...

'' series for

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...

and for developing numerous titles in the

Angry Birds ''Angry Birds'' is a Finnish media franchise created by Rovio Entertainment, and owned by Sega. The game series focuses on the titular flock of colorful angry birds who try to save their eggs from green-colored pigs. Inspired by the game ''Cr ...

series. The company was incorporated in 2000 and began operations in January 2001.

History

Exient was founded by Charles Chapman and David Hawkins in 2001. Chapman began developing computer games at age 14 and graduated with a mathematics and computation degree from

Keble College, Oxford Keble College () is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University Museum a ...

. Hawkins worked with software engineering in automotive and switched to project management in games. They met when Hawkins, working for Atari, was looking for ideas for games and Chapman, impressed by Hawkins works, decided to found a development company. Up to 2013, the bulk of their development was for gaming platforms such as PSP,

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

, and

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

but since 2014 their games have been developed for platforms including Android,

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

, PC and

Console Console may refer to: Computing and video games * System console, a physical device to operate a computer ** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device ** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...

. Exient currently develops its games on a proprietary, in-house developed, engine named ''XGS'', the Unity and

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter video game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of ...

platforms. In 2020, the company rebranded its publishing labels, Sad Puppy and Donut, to Exient Publishing. In July 2022, an anonymous source told

MCV/Develop ''MCV/Develop'' (formerly ''MCV'' and ''Market for Computer & Video Games'') is a UK trade magazine that focuses on the business aspects of the video game industry. It is published monthly by Biz Media, a subsidiary of Datateam Media Group and ...

that Exient was restructuring resulting in redundancies. In August 2022, Exient produced a two hour long documentary titled "Lemmings: Can you dig it" on the history of the ''

Lemmings A lemming is a small rodent, usually found in or near the Arctic in tundra biomes. Lemmings form the subfamily Arvicolinae (also known as Microtinae) together with voles and muskrats, which form part of the superfamily Muroidea, which also incl ...

'' series, featuring the original developers, alumni of

DMA Design Rockstar North (Rockstar Games UK Limited; formerly DMA Design Limited) is a British video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Edinburgh. The studio is best known for creating the ''Lemmings (series), Lemmings'' and ''Grand ...

. The documentary was premiered at the Dundee Centre of Contemporary Arts (DCA) and released free to watch on YouTube.

Games developed

Awards

References

External links

* * {{MobyGames developer, id=3523, name=Exient Companies based in Oxford British companies established in 2000 Video game companies established in 2000 Video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies 2000 establishments in England

History

Games developed

Awards

Further reading

References

External links