Ubisoft Entertainment SA is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, For Honor, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Rabbids, Rayman, Tom Clancy's, and Watch Dogs.
Gameloft SE is a French video game publisher based in Paris, founded in December 1999 by Ubisoft co-founder Michel Guillemot. The company operates 18 development studios worldwide, and publishes games with a special focus on the mobile games market. Formerly a public company traded at the Paris Bourse, Gameloft was acquired by media conglomerate Vivendi in 2016.
Kotaku is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier.
Crashday is a destruction derby/racing/car stunts game co-developed by Replay Studios and Moonbyte Games and published by Atari Europe. It was released in February 2006.
SouthPeak Interactive Corporation, doing business as SouthPeak Games, was an American video game publisher based in Midlothian, Virginia. Founded on March 1, 1996, as a subsidiary of SAS Institute in Cary, North Carolina, it was sold and moved to Midlothian, Virginia in 2000, and became a public company in 2008. Also in 2008, the company acquired and closed Austin, Texas-based publisher Gamecock Media Group, and opened a separate digital distribution subsidiary 7Sixty in Grapevine, Texas in 2011. SouthPeak Games quietly disappeared from the public eye in July 2013.
Vivendi Games was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1996 as CUC Software, the publishing subsidiary of CUC International, after the latter acquired video game companies Davidson & Associates and Sierra On-Line. Between 1997 and 2001, the company switched parents and names multiple times before ending up organized under Vivendi Universal. On July 10, 2008, Vivendi Games merged with Activision to create Activision Blizzard.
Velvet Assassin is a stealth video game developed by Replay Studios and published by SouthPeak Games. It was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in 2009 and on the Mac App Store in 2013. Velvet Assassin's working title was Sabotage. Players take control of Violette Summer, a World War II-era British Secret Intelligence Service spy operating deep behind enemy lines, attempting to help thwart the Nazi war effort. The game's story was inspired by a real-life secret agent/saboteur Violette Szabo.
Team Bondi Pty. Limited was an Australian video game developer based in Sydney. The company was founded by creative director Brendan McNamara, formerly of Team Soho, in 2003. The studio's first and only title, the action-adventure game L.A. Noire, was announced in July 2005. The development was originally funded and overseen by Sony Computer Entertainment Australia, although all publishing duties later switched hands to Rockstar Games. L.A. Noire was released by Rockstar Games, initially for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in May 2011, to both commercial and critical success. Despite the positive reception, Team Bondi faced several allegations of poor working conditions by several former employees, causing controversy for the studio and leading Rockstar Games to part ways with Team Bondi following L.A. Noire's release. As a result of this, the developer saw itself unable to sign a publishing deal for a new game that was being written by McNamara.
Assassin's Creed is an open-world, action-adventure, and stealth game franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal using the game engine Anvil and its more advanced derivatives. Created by Patrice Désilets, Jade Raymond, and Corey May, the Assassin's Creed video game series depicts a fictional millennia-old struggle between the Order of Assassins, who fight for peace and free will, and the Knights Templar, who desire peace through order and control. The series features historical fiction, science fiction, and fictional characters intertwined with real-world historical events and historical figures. In most games, players control a historical Assassin while also playing as an Assassin Initiate or someone caught in the Assassin–Templar conflict in the present-day framing story. Considered a spiritual successor to the Prince of Persia series, Assassin's Creed took inspiration from the novel Alamut by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol, based on the historical Hashashin sect of the medieval Middle East.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a 2011 action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red, based on The Witcher series of fantasy novels by Andrzej Sapkowski. It is the sequel to the 2007 game The Witcher and the second main installment in The Witcher's video game series. It was released for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, OS X, and Linux.
Ubisoft Quebec is a Canadian video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Quebec City. The studio was established in June 2005 and is best known for its work in the Assassin's Creed franchise.
PlayStation Studios is a division of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) that oversees the video game development at the studios owned by SIE. The division was established as SCE Worldwide Studios in September 2005 and rebranded as PlayStation Studios in 2020.
Silver Style Entertainment was a video game developer based in Berlin, Germany, founded in 1993 by Carsten Strehse. In 2006, the company was taken over by The Games Company, and became an in-house development studio. Originally, the company developed largely for the PC, but following the acquisition it has shifted its focus to include consoles such as the Xbox 360.
Devolver Digital, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Austin, Texas, specializing in the publishing of indie games. The company was founded in June 2009 by Nigel Lowrie, Harry Miller, Graeme Struthers, Rick Stults, and Mike Wilson, five executives who had been involved with Gathering of Developers and Gamecock Media Group, which published games on developer-friendly terms, but due to the high cost associated with releasing retail games saw themselves acquired and dissolved by larger companies. To avoid this, Devolver Digital instead turned to digital distribution channels.
Proteus is a 2013 exploration and walking simulator video game designed and created by Ed Key and David Kanaga for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita. In the game, the player traverses a procedurally generated environment without prescribed goals. The world's flora and fauna emit unique musical signatures, combinations of which cause dynamic shifts in audio based on the player's surroundings.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate is an action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Quebec and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 23, 2015, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on November 19, 2015, for Windows. It is the ninth major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, and the successor to 2014's Assassin's Creed Unity.
4Players is a German online magazine that provides news and reviews of video games and related content. Established in August 2000, 4Players is owned by the Hamburg-based company 4Players GmbH, an indirect subsidiary of the Marquard Group conglomerate.
Assassin's Creed Origins is a 2017 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the tenth major installment in the Assassin's Creed series, following 2015's Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Principally set in Egypt, near the end of the Ptolemaic period from 49 to 43 BC, the story follows a Medjay named Bayek of Siwa and his wife Aya as they seek revenge for the murder of their son. It also explores the origins of the Assassin Brotherhood—referred here to as the Hidden Ones—and of their millenia-long conflict with the Order of the Ancients—forerunners to the Templar Order. The framing story, set in the 21st century, follows a new character, Layla Hassan, who relives Bayek and Aya's memories using a modified Animus device.
Ubisoft Singapore Pte. Ltd. is a Singaporean video game developer and studio of Ubisoft based at Fusionopolis in One-north, Singapore. The studio was founded in 2008 and has contributed to the majority of Assassin's Creed games. It is currently leading the development of their upcoming title Skull and Bones.
