 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | May 1, 2018; 5 years ago |
| Founder | Bret Robbins |
| Headquarters | San Rafael, California |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Bret Robbins (CEO) |
| Products | Immortals of Aveum |
Number of employees | 100+ (July 2023) [1] |
| Website | ascendantstudios |
Ascendant Studios is an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. It was founded by Bret Robbins and former Electronic Arts industry veterans in 2018. [2]
Former Electronic Arts and Sledgehammer Games creative director Bret Robbins founded Ascendant Studios in 2018 in partnership with businessman Brian Sheth, co-founder and Former president of private equity software investor Vista Equity Partners. [3]
After Telltale Games went bankrupt in 2018, most of the developers working at the studio moved to Ascendant Studios, including Ascendant Studios' art directors Dave Bogan and Julia Lichtblau, and lead writer Michael Kirkbride. The studio grew from fifty developers to over one hundred developers in less than a year. [4]
The studio announced its first game, Immortals of Aveum , at The Game Awards 2022, that will be published under Electronic Arts' EA Originals program. [5] In 2023 it was revealed that the game will be released on July 20, 2023. [6] The game was later delayed to August 22, 2023. [7]
On September 14, 2023, it was reported that the studio laid off about 40 developers, roughly half of its staff at the time, due to Immortals of Aveum's poor sales figures. [8]
On April 10, 2024 a further 30 developers were placed on furlough. Director Bret Robbins admitted a part of the poor performance was due to the $70 price. [9]
| Year | Title | Platform(s) | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Immortals of Aveum | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S | Electronic Arts |
Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the Black & White and Fable series. Lionhead started as a breakaway from developer Bullfrog Productions, which was also founded by Molyneux. Lionhead's first game was Black & White, a god game with elements of artificial life and strategy games. Black & White was published by Electronic Arts in 2001. Lionhead Studios is named after Webley's hamster, which died not long after the naming of the studio, as a result of which the studio was very briefly renamed to Redeye Studios.
The 3DO Company, also known as 3DO, was an American video game company. It was founded in 1991 by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, in a partnership with seven other companies. After 3DO's flagship video game console, the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, failed in the marketplace, the company exited the hardware business and became a third-party video game developer. It went bankrupt in 2003 due to poor sales of its games. Its headquarters were in Redwood City, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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 of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and was the top United States publisher in 2016.
BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, and Marcel Zeschuk. Since 2007, the company has been owned by American publisher Electronic Arts.
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer.
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists". EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die! The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991.
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) is a non-profit organization of video game industry professionals. It organizes the annual Design Innovate Communicate Entertain Summit, better known as D.I.C.E., which includes the presentations of the D.I.C.E. Awards.
Eidos Interactive Limited was a British video game publisher based in Wimbledon, London. Its games series included Championship Manager (1992), Tomb Raider (1996) and Hitman (2000). Domark was founded by Mark Strachan and Dominic Wheatley in 1984. In 1995, it was acquired by software company Eidos. Ian Livingstone, who held a stake in Domark, became executive chairman of Eidos and held various roles including creative director. Eidos took over U.S. Gold in 1996, which included developer Core Design, and merged its operations including Domark, which created publishing subsidiary Eidos Interactive. The company acquired Crystal Dynamics in 1998, and owned numerous other assets. In 2005, parent Eidos was taken over by games publisher SCi. The combined company, SCi Entertainment Group, which was briefly renamed Eidos, was itself taken over by Square Enix in 2009.
EA Orlando is an American video game developer located in Orlando, Florida founded in 1994. It was formerly known as Tiburon Entertainment, which was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1998. After the acquisition, the studio was renamed EA Tiburon. EA had already purchased a minority equity interest in Tiburon in May 1996, the terms of which included that Tiburon would develop games exclusively for EA.
Glen Schofield is an American video game artist, designer, director, and producer. He was formerly the vice president and general manager at Visceral Games, co-founder of Sledgehammer Games, founder and former CEO of Striking Distance Studios, and the creator and executive producer of the third-person survival horror video game Dead Space.
Sledgehammer Games, Inc. is an American video game developer company formed in 2009 by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey. The pair formerly worked at Visceral Games and are responsible for the creation of Dead Space. The company is based in Foster City, California. The studio has developed and co-developed various video games in the Call of Duty series.
Respawn Entertainment, LLC is an American video game development studio founded in 2010 by Jason West and Vince Zampella and owned by Electronic Arts since 2017. West and Zampella previously co-founded Infinity Ward and created the Call of Duty franchise, where they were responsible for its development until 2010.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a 2012 action role-playing game developed by Big Huge Games and published by 38 Studios and Electronic Arts for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Reckoning follows the story of the Fateless One, a resurrected person freed from the destiny which binds all of Amalur's people to destruction. Gameplay consists of players exploring the Faelands of Amalur, completing quests and fighting a variety of enemies both in field and dungeon environments. The playstyle is customized through a combination of weapons types, skill trees, and passive enhancements earned through quests and the Destiny character class system.
Video gaming in the United States is one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the country. The American video game industry is the largest video game industry in the world. According to a 2020 study released by the Entertainment Software Association, the yearly economic output of the American video game industry in 2019 was $90.3 billion, supporting over 429,000 American jobs. With an average yearly salary of about $121,000, the latter figure includes over 143,000 individuals who are directly employed by the video game business. Additionally, activities connected to the video game business generate $12.6 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year. World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025 the American gaming industry will reach $42.3 billion while worldwide gaming industry will possibly reach US$270 billion. The United States is one of the nations with the largest influence in the video game industry, with video games representing a significant part of its economy.
David Gaider is a Canadian narrative designer and writer. He was the lead writer and creator of the setting for the role-playing video game series Dragon Age.
The Chinese Room is a British video game developer based in Brighton that is best known for exploration games. The company originated as a mod team for Half-Life 2, based at the University of Portsmouth in 2007, and is named after John Searle's Chinese room thought experiment. In August 2018, it became a subsidiary of Sumo Digital.
Bonnie Ross is an American video game developer. She served as Corporate Vice President at Xbox Game Studios, and was the head of 343 Industries, the subsidiary studio that manages the Halo video game franchise. Ross studied technical writing and computer science in college, and worked at IBM before getting a job at Microsoft. She worked on a number of PC and Xbox games, becoming a general manager at Xbox Game Studios.
An immersive sim (simulation) is a video game genre that emphasizes player choice. Its core, defining trait is the use of simulated systems that respond to a variety of player actions which, combined with a comparatively broad array of player abilities, allow the game to support varied and creative solutions to problems, as well as emergent gameplay beyond what has been explicitly designed by the developer. This definition is not to be confused with game systems which allow player choice in a confined sense or systems which allow players to easily escape consequences of their choices.
Immortals of Aveum is a 2023 first-person shooter game developed by Ascendant Studios and published by Electronic Arts. The game was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on August 22, 2023. It received generally mixed reviews from critics and sold poorly, which led to Ascendant Studios laying off almost half their staff.
 | This United States video game corporation or company article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |