Rebellion Developments

Rebellion Developments Limited

Type	Private
Industry	Video game industry
Genre	Video games, comics and books
Founded	4 December 1992 (1992-12-04)
Founder	Jason Kingsley Chris Kingsley
Headquarters	Oxford, England
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Jason Kingsley (CEO) Chris Kingsley (CTO)
Products	Alien vs. Predator series Sniper Elite series
Owner	The Kingsley brothers[1]
Number of employees	300[2] (2018)
Subsidiaries	Abaddon Books Rebellion Liverpool Rebellion Warwick Solaris Books
Website	rebellion.com

Rebellion Developments Limited is a British video game developer based in Oxford, England, known for its Sniper Elite series and multiple games in the Alien vs. Predator series. Rebellion has published comic books since the year 2000, in which it purchased 2000 AD (publisher of characters such as Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper). The company launched its own book imprint, Abaddon Books, in 2006.

History

In 1992, brothers Jason and Chris Kingsley founded Rebellion.^[3] The pair had just finished academic degrees at the University of Oxford, and had ambitions of starting doctorates.^[3] In their spare time, they did freelance work in the games industry.^[3] When their freelance jobs roles began to expand and they were taking on more management responsibilities, they decided to establish Rebellion in Oxford.^[3] The foundation of the studio was laid when the brothers secured a deal with video game publisher Atari UK.^[3] They presented a 3D dragon flight game demo to directors at the publisher, who were seeking games for the upcoming Atari Jaguar system.^[3] They were commissioned by Atari to work on two titles for the Jaguar, Checkered Flag and Alien vs Predator, which both released in 1994.^[3] The development team was expanded to assist with work on these games. It included artists Stuart Wilson, Toby Banfield, and Justin Rae and programmers Mike Beaton, Rob Dibley, and Andrew Whittaker.^[4] Following Alien vs Predator, Rebellion saw no releases for some years, with their next project, the intentionally light-hearted PC game Mr. Tank,^[5] going unpublished.

In June 2000, they bought the comic 2000 AD from Fleetway,^[6] and have since developed several characters from the comic for the games market. The first commercial release, Judge Dredd: Dredd Vs. Death was mildly successful. A second game was released in 2006 based on Rogue Trooper. Its 2005 game Sniper Elite was awarded "Best PC/Console Game" in the TIGA Awards of 2005.^[7]

In 2004, Rebellion entered a deal with DC Comics to reprint several 2000 AD stories in trade paperback form, including Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Nikolai Dante, and Sinister Dexter. When DC left the venture, citing poor sales, Rebellion created its own line of American graphic novels, distributed through Simon & Schuster. In 2005 Rebellion also created the Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files series, which has begun reprinting almost every appearance of Judge Dredd in chronological order.

In 2006, following the demise of Elixir Studios, Rebellion purchased all IP related to the studio, including Evil Genius and Republic: The Revolution.^[8] Later, in 2009, Jason Kingsley confirmed rights ownership of former Vivendi franchises sold before merging with Activision in 2008, as well as the intention of making new sequels of those and Elixir Studios games.^[9]

In 2006, Rebellion purchased Tomb Raider developers Core Design from Eidos Interactive, as well as Strangelite from Empire Interactive, making the company the largest independent European development studio. Rebellion launched their novel imprint Abaddon Books and made a number of publishing purchases. These included buying Clickwheel, which was used to digitally published 2000 AD,^[10] with archives^[11] and an online iPhone comic reading application^[12] launched later. Rebellion was awarded the Develop Industry Excellence Award 2006 for Most Improved Studio.^[13]

In August 2008, Blackfish Publishing, publisher of Death Ray magazine, announced it had been bought by Rebellion.^[14] In September 2008, Rebellion acquired Mongoose Publishing,^[15] who had previously published games like The Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game.

In 2009, Rebellion's Rogue Warrior game received poor reviews but notable titles have included Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron for the PlayStation Portable. In 2010, they developed the latest Aliens vs. Predator game, published by Sega, which received a mixed critical reception, but debuted at number one on the UK all formats chart.^[16] As of June 2011, it is the fastest-selling game of 2010 in the UK, a record previously held by BioShock 2;^[17] it was also the best-selling game on Steam, as well as on the retail PC charts.^[18] Along with developing the title's characters for video games, Rebellion continues to publish 2000 AD as well as its sister title the Judge Dredd Megazine.

In June 2009, it was announced^[19] that Rebellion had acquired the role-playing and board games publisher Cubicle 7. In September 2009, Rebellion acquired Solaris Books from Games Workshop.^[20]

Two games from Rebellion released in 2012: NeverDead, published by Konami and directed by Shinta Nojiri (who was involved in the development of the Metal Gear Solid series of games), and Sniper Elite V2, which is being co-published with 505 Games. In July 2013, Rebellion bought the Battlezone and the Moonbase Commander franchises from the Atari bankruptcy proceedings.^[21]

In 2014, a sequel to Sniper Elite V2, Sniper Elite III was released.

In September 2015, Rebellion announced that the Sniper Elite series had passed 10 million copies sold worldwide and also celebrated its 10th anniversary in that year.^[22]

In August 2016, Rebellion acquired the post-1970 IPC Youth and Fleetway comics libraries from Egmont.^[23][24] In that year it began to reprint the acquired stories under its new imprint Treasury of British Comics.

In January 2018, Rebellion acquired Radiant Worlds for an undisclosed sum. Radiant Worlds will be rebranded Rebellion Warwick. It joins Rebellion Liverpool and the firm's HQ in Oxford.^[25]

Subsidiaries

Games developed

Games published

These games were originally developed and/or published by other companies, but were subsequently acquired and re-published by Rebellion:

• Evil Genius (2009, PC). Originally developed by Elixir Studios and published in 2004.
• Republic: The Revolution (2009, PC). Originally developed by Elixir Studios and published in 2003.
• Empire Earth: Gold Edition (2009, PC). Originally developed by Stainless Steel Studios and published in 2001. The expansion pack was released in 2002.
• Ground Control + Expansion (2009, PC). Originally developed by Massive Entertainment and published in 2000.
• Ground Control II: Operation Exodus SE (2009, PC). Originally developed by Massive Entertainment and published in 2004.
• Lords of the Realm: Royal Edition (2009, PC). Originally developed by Impressions Games and published in 1994. This includes Lords of the Realm II published in 1996.
• Lords of the Realm III (2009, PC). Originally developed by Impressions Games and published in 2004.
• Lords of Magic: Special Edition (2009, PC). Originally developed by Impressions Games and published in 1998.
• Woolfe - The Red Hood Diaries (2015, PC). Originally developed by GriN Gamestudio and published in 2015.
• Battlezone 98 Redux (2016, PC). Developed by Big Boat Interactive.
• Battlezone: Combat Commander (2018, PC). Developed by Big Boat Interactive.

References

External links

• Official website