Evolution Studios Ltd. was 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 ...

based in

Runcorn Runcorn is an industrial town and Runcorn Docks, cargo port in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England. Runcorn is on the south bank of the River Mersey, where the estuary narrows to form the Runcorn Gap. It is upstream from the port of Live ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

. The company was founded in 1999 by Martin Kenwright and Ian Hetherington, following the purchase of their studio Digital Image Design's publisher Ocean Software by Infogrames. Kenwright then left Digital Image Design with six members of staff to form Evolution Studios.

Company history

Then based in Frodsham,

, it developed a racing demo on PC, depicting multiple rally cars racing on a circuit with cockpit views, which was subsequently picked up by

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

as it was interested in a

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

game based on the

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is an international rallying series owned and governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the oldest FIA world championship after Formula One. E ...

licence. Both Evolution and their satellite studio, Bigbig Studios, in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

were acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in September 2007. At this point, Kenwright and Hetherington left the company, with its co-founder Mick Hocking taking over, running Evolution, Bigbig and Studio Liverpool as Group Studio Director. Hocking was subsequently promoted to Vice President of the Studio Group in April 2011. The developer's last game was '' Driveclub''. It was scheduled as a PlayStation 4 launch title, although it was ultimately delayed, until October 2014. They claim they had trademarked the name of the game almost 10 years ago, but were waiting for the technology to create their vision of the game. On 23 March 2015, 55 staff members were cut from Evolution Studio, which sources say is approximately half of the studio. The redundancies have been described by Sony as a way to focus the studio on developing Driveclub as a service. On 22 March 2016, Sony announced that Evolution Studios was closed. On 11 April 2016, the development team joined Codemasters as Codemasters EVO, which would be renamed as Codemasters Cheshire. After the disappointing sales of their next game '' Onrush'', several members of the Codemasters Cheshire development division were let go in redundancies, including game director Paul Rustchynsky, and the division was shifted to a support role for other Codemasters titles. In May 2022, the team at Codemasters Cheshire was merged into

Criterion Games Criterion Games is a British video game developer based in Guildford. Founded in January 1996 as a Division (business), division of Criterion Software, it was owned by Canon Inc. until Criterion Software was sold to Electronic Arts in October 2 ...

, an EA subsidiary.

Games developed

References

External links

* Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game companies established in 1999 Video game companies disestablished in 2016 1999 establishments in England 2016 disestablishments in England PlayStation Studios 2007 mergers and acquisitions Video game development companies Defunct companies of England Runcorn {{UK-videogame-company-stub