 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | January 1, 2013 |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
| Products | Ashes of the Singularity |
Number of employees | 65 |
| Website | oxidegames.com |
Oxide Games is an American video game developer based in Lutherville-Timonium, Maryland. The studio was founded in January 2013 by Brad Wardell and former Firaxis employees Dan Baker, Marc Meyer, Brian Wade, and Tim Kipp. [1]
Oxide Games focuses primarily on games and game engines for the Personal computer (PC). [2] [3] Initially founded to develop a next-generation game engine and games to use it [4] the studio developed the Nitrous engine to take advantage of new graphics APIs that allowed multiple CPU cores to simultaneously access the GPU such as DirectX 12 and Mantle. [5]
The studio's first release of its Nitrous technology came in the form of Star Swarm, a demonstration of thousands of 3D entities on screen to demonstrate the potential of a multicore rendering and task system. [6]
In 2016, the studio's first game was published by Stardock, Ashes of the Singularity . It was the first game to make use of DirectX 12 after previously making a pre-beta version of it available as a benchmark for the new API. [7]
The studio's founders helped contributed to High-Level Shader Language (HLSL) [8] and have worked on several notable titles including Civilization, Command and Conquer , and Galactic Civilizations series. [9]
On June 12, 2022, as part of the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022, [10] Oxide announced Ara: History Untold . [11] This will be a 4X game comparable to the Civilization series of games that many members of the Oxide Games team worked on prior to the studio's formation. [12]
| Year | Title | Platform(s) | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Ashes of the Singularity | Microsoft Windows | Stardock |
| 2024 | Ara: History Untold | Microsoft Windows | Xbox Game Studios |
NitrousEngine [13] is the proprietary game engine software used in development for Oxide Games products. It uses the power of its proprietary SWARM (Simultaneous Work and Rendering Model) technology to achieve incredible performance on modern, multi-core computer hardware. SWARM allows Nitrous to do things previously thought impossible in real-time 3D rendering, like Object Space Lighting—the same techniques used in the film industry—and having thousands of unique individual units onscreen at once. [14]
In 2016 Oxide and Dan Baker were part of the first major tech Demo for DX12 along with Brian Langley, Microsoft's DirectX 12 lead, Max McMullen, Microsoft's principal lead for Direct3D. [15]
In April 2020 AMD and Oxide Games announced a multi-year partnership [16] to co-develop graphics technologies for the growing cloud gaming market. The companies plan to create a robust set of tools and technologies for cloud rendering designed from the ground up to embrace the real-time demands of cloud-based gaming.
The Nitrous engine has been used by Stardock on a number of games including Star Control: Origins and Siege of Centauri. [17]
In 2020, the studio was recognized by The Baltimore Sun as one of Baltimore's Top Small Employers for the year. [18]
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. The name DirectX was coined as a shorthand term for all of these APIs and soon became the name of the collection. When Microsoft later set out to develop a gaming console, the X was used as the basis of the name Xbox to indicate that the console was based on DirectX technology. The X initial has been carried forward in the naming of APIs designed for the Xbox such as XInput and the Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT), while the DirectX pattern has been continued for Windows APIs such as Direct2D and DirectWrite.
4X is a subgenre of strategy-based computer and board games, and includes both turn-based and real-time strategy titles. The gameplay generally involves building an empire. Emphasis is placed upon economic and technological development, as well as a range of military and non-military routes to supremacy.
Stardock Corporation is an American software development company founded in 1991 and incorporated in 1993 as Stardock Systems. Stardock initially developed for the OS/2 platform, but was forced to switch to Microsoft Windows due to the collapse of the OS/2 software market between 1997 and 1998. The company is best known for computer programs that allow a user to modify or extend a graphical user interface as well as personal computer games, particularly strategy games such as the Galactic Civilizations series, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, and Ashes of the Singularity.
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords is a 4X turn-based strategy by Stardock for Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to the 2003 game, Galactic Civilizations, and was released at retail and on Stardock's online subscription service, TotalGaming.net, on February 21, 2006. An expansion, Dark Avatar, was released in February 2007. A second expansion, Twilight of the Arnor, was released in April 2008.
Stardock Central was a software content delivery and digital rights management system used by Stardock customers to access components of the Object Desktop, TotalGaming.net and ThinkDesk product lines, as well as products under the WinCustomize brand.
Bradley R. Wardell is an American businessman, programmer, author and AI engineer. He is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of Stardock, a software development and computer games company.
The Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) is a proprietary game engine of Rockstar Games, developed by the RAGE Technology Group division of Rockstar San Diego, based on the Angel Game Engine. Since its first game, Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis in 2006, released for the Xbox 360 and Wii, the engine has been used by Rockstar Games's internal studios to develop advanced open world games for computers and consoles.
Elemental: War of Magic is a fantasy 4X turn-based strategy game developed and published by Stardock, released in August 24, 2010.
Mantle was a low-overhead rendering API targeted at 3D video games. AMD originally developed Mantle in cooperation with DICE, starting in 2013. Mantle was designed as an alternative to Direct3D and OpenGL, primarily for use on personal computers, although Mantle supports the GPUs present in the PlayStation 4 and in the Xbox One. In 2015, Mantle's public development was suspended and in 2019 completely discontinued, as DirectX 12 and the Mantle-derived Vulkan rose in popularity.
Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy video game developed by Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment. The game was released for Microsoft Windows on March 31, 2016. The game features massive battles involving thousands of units on vast battlefields. As such, it requires relatively high-end hardware. A standalone expansion pack, called Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation was released in November 2016, but was later merged into the main game.
Stride is a free and open-source 2D and 3D cross-platform game engine originally developed by Silicon Studio. It can be used to create video games for PC, mobile devices and virtual reality.
Geoff Knorr is an American composer, orchestrator, and sound designer. He has worked on video game titles such as Civilization V, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Civilization VI, Galactic Civilizations III, and Ashes of the Singularity.
Star Control: Origins is an action-adventure game developed and published by Stardock Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, released September 20, 2018.
The ninth generation of video game consoles began in November 2020 with the releases of Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Series S console family and Sony's PlayStation 5.
The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are the fourth generation of consoles in the Xbox series. Released on November 10, 2020, the higher-end Xbox Series X and lower-end Xbox Series S are part of the ninth generation of video game consoles, which also includes Sony's PlayStation 5, released the same month. Both superseded the Xbox One.
Mohawk Games is an American video game developer based in Baltimore, Maryland, known for releasing the strategy video games Offworld Trading Company and Old World.
Siege of Centauri is a tower defense video game by Stardock for Microsoft Windows. It takes place in the same universe as Ashes of the Singularity, a game developed by Oxide Games and published by Stardock. The game was released on September 12, 2019, earning mixed reviews as a standard implementation of the tower defense genre.
Galactic Civilizations IV is a 4X turn-based strategy video game developed by Stardock for Microsoft Windows. It features standard 4X space gameplay such as colonizing a galaxy, engaging in space combat, and discovering new technology and alien species. As the fourth entry in the Galactic Civilizations series, the game adds an artificial intelligence assistant, a scoring system, and a larger galaxy organized into multiple sectors of tile-based maps. The game entered early access in 2021, promising to learn from other 4X games including Stellaris, Endless Space, and Distant Worlds.
Ara: History Untold is an turn-based grand strategy video game developed by Oxide Games and published by Xbox Game Studios. The game was announced during Xbox and Bethesda Showcase 2022. It is about building and leading a nation throughout alternate history. The game was released for Microsoft Windows on September 24, 2024.