Climax Studios

Climax Studios Limited
Formerly
  • Climax Limited (1988-1993)
  • Climax Interactive Limited (1993-1994)
  • Climax Enterprises Ltd (1994-1996)
  • Climax Development Ltd (1996-2003)
  • Climax Studios (Solent) Limited (2003-2004)
  • Climax Action Limited (2004-2008)
Industry Computer and video games
Interactive entertainment
Founded 1988
Founder Karl Jeffery[1]
Headquarters Portsmouth, England
Products List of Climax games
Website Climax Studios

Climax Studios Limited is a British video game developer based in Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom that are best known for their work on the 2004 action role-playing game Sudeki and the 2007 and 2009 survival horror video games Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories from the Silent Hill franchise.

History

Climax Studios was formed simply as Climax in 1988.[1] In the late 90's the company ported two of Blizzard Entertainment's popular games to consoles. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, along with its official expansion pack Beyond the Dark Portal, was released for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn as Warcraft II: The Dark Saga in 1997,[2] a PlayStation port of Diablo followed in 1998. In 1999 the company's offices moved to Fareham. The Studio would re-locate to Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth in 2002 and were renamed again to Climax Solent. in 2003.

In 2000 Climax released a recreation of the game Theme Park World/Sim Theme Park for the Sony Playstation for Bullfrog Entertainment.

In 2002 Climax began working on a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on Games Workshop's Warhammer franchise titled Warhammer Online (not to be confused with Mythic Entertainment's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning).[3] In 2004 Games Workshop decided that the project was becoming too expensive and stopped funding it. Climax attempted to finish the game by funding it on their own but soon after the project was cancelled.

In 2004 Climax released Sudeki, an action RPG heavily inspired by JRPGs for the Xbox, published by Microsoft. In November, the Solent studio was merged with the London studio and renamed to Climax Action.

In 2006 Konami announced that Climax Action was working on the next entry in the popular Silent Hill franchise of horror games after the original team behind the series, Konami's internal development team Team Silent, had been disbanded. It was titled Silent Hill: Origins and exclusively announced for the PlayStation Portable. In October 2007 the game was released to met positive reviews.[4] In 2008 a PlayStation 2 version of the game followed.

By 2008 the Kingston and London offices were closed and so Climax Action was rebranded to Climax Studios, as it was the only Climax studio remaining.

In 2009 it was announced that Climax was working on another Silent Hill game for Nintendo's Wii console titled Shattered Memories.[5] The game was announced as a remake of the original Silent Hill game, although the term "re-imagining" was used to emphasise that it was going to provide a completely new experience. Later versions for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable were also announced.

In recent years Climax has developed and published a number of VR titles, including Lola and The Giant which was featured at Google's I/O'17 Event, Bandit Six, Gun Sight and Dirt Rally.

References

  1. 1 2 "Climax Studios Games". IGN. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  2. ↑ "Warcraft II: The Dark Saga Review". GameSpot. 30 September 1997. Archived from the original on 13 June 2013. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  3. ↑ Justin Olivetti (12 July 2011). "The Game Archaeologist and the What Ifs: Climax's Warhammer Online". Joystiq. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  4. ↑ "Silent Hill Origins for PlayStation Portable reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  5. ↑ Mike Fahey (4 June 2009). "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Re-Does Wii, PS2, And PSP". Kotaku. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.