Crytek GmbH is a German video game developer and software developer based in Frankfurt. Founded by the Yerli brothers in Coburg in 1999 and moved to Frankfurt in 2006, Crytek also operates further studios in Kyiv, Ukraine and Istanbul, Turkey. Its former studios included Crytek Black Sea in Sofia, Bulgaria, Crytek UK in Nottingham, and Crytek USA in Austin, Texas. Crytek is best known for developing the first instalment of the Far Cry series, and the Crysis series, and the open world nature of their games which showcase the company's CryEngine.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is a first-person shooter survival horror video game developed by GSC Game World and published by THQ in 2007 following a long development. The game is set in an alternative reality, where a second disaster of mysterious origin occurred at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, causing strange changes in the area around it. The game features a non-linear storyline and includes role-playing gameplay elements such as trading and two-way communication with non-player characters.
Criterion Games is a British video game developer based in Guildford. Founded in January 1996 as a division of Criterion Software, it was owned by Canon Inc. until Criterion Software was sold to Electronic Arts in October 2004. Many of Criterion Games' titles were built on the RenderWare engine, which Criterion Software developed. Notable games developed by Criterion Games include racing video games in the Burnout and Need for Speed series. As of April 2017, Criterion Games employ approximately 90 people.
Kojima Productions Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game development studio originally founded in 2005 by video game designer Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series. It is the spiritual successor to a production team inside Konami also known as Kojima Productions. The team had around 100 employees, but grew to over 200 for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. After leaving Konami, Kojima founded an independent studio with a slightly altered Japanese name in Shinagawa.
Housemarque Oy is a Finnish video game developer based in Helsinki. The company was founded by Ilari Kuittinen and Harri Tikkanen in July 1995, through the merger of their previous video game companies, Bloodhouse and Terramarque, both of which were founded in 1993 as Finland's first commercial developers. Housemarque is the oldest active developer in Finland and has about 80 employees as of January 2020. It was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in June 2021, becoming a part of PlayStation Studios.
GSC Game World is a Ukrainian video game developer based in Prague. Founded in Kyiv in 1995 by Sergiy Grygorovych, it is best known for the Cossacks and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games. GSC Game World was the first company in Ukraine to localize PC games to the Russian language. In 2002, it became a publishing house, GSC World Publishing.
Metro 2033 is a 2010 first-person shooter survival horror video game developed by 4A Games and published by THQ. The story is based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novel of the same name, where survivors of a nuclear war have taken refuge in the Metro tunnels of Moscow. Players control Artyom, a man who must save his home station from the dangers lurking within the Metro. In the game, players encounter human and mutant enemies, who can be killed with a variety of firearms. Players must also wear a gas mask to explore areas covered in fallout radiation, both underground and on the surface.
4A Games Limited is a Ukrainian-Maltese video game developer based in Sliema, Malta. The company was founded in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2006 by three developers who departed from GSC Game World. In 2014, 4A Games moved its headquarters to Sliema, wherein the Kyiv office was retained as a sub-studio. The company is best known for developing the Metro video game 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.
Video games in Ukraine began to emerge in the 1990s, with the appearance of the first studios. Subsequently, in the 2000-2010 in Ukraine there were several well-known video game series. Although the video game industry in Ukraine is only developing, video gaming is becoming more and more popular in the country.
Survarium was a free-to-play online first-person shooter with role-playing and survival elements developed by Vostok Games through a venture capital following the purported cancellation of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 and closure of GSC Game World in December 2011. Although Survarium is external to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, the developers intend to include comparable features, notably the anomalies and artifacts that reference the Russian science-fiction novel Roadside Picnic, and the 'ecological catastrophe' that renders much of the environment uninhabitable for humans.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a first-person-shooter survival horror video game franchise developed by Ukrainian game developer GSC Game World. The series is set in an alternate version of the present-day Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine, where, according to the series' backstory, a mysterious second Chernobyl disaster took place in 2006. As a result, the physical, chemical, and biological processes in the area were altered, spawning numerous nature-defying anomalies, artifacts, and mutants. The player takes the role of a "stalker" - a name given to trespassers and adventurers who have come to explore the exclusion zone and its strange phenomena.
Boss Key Productions, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in April 2014 by Cliff Bleszinski and Arjan Brussee, formerly of Epic Games, the company developed LawBreakers (2017) and Radical Heights (2018), both of which were commercial failures, effectively leading to the closure of the development team in May 2018.
A battle royale game is an online multiplayer video game genre that blends last-man-standing gameplay with the survival, exploration and scavenging elements of a survival game. Battle royale games involve dozens to hundreds of players, who start with minimal equipment and then must eliminate all other opponents while avoiding being trapped outside of a shrinking "safe area", with the winner being the last player or team alive.
Fortnite Battle Royale is a free-to-play battle royale video game developed and published by Epic Games. It is a companion game to Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative survival game with construction elements. It was initially released in early access on September 26, 2017, for macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, followed by ports for iOS, Nintendo Switch, and Android. The following year, Epic dropped the early access label for the game on June 29, 2020. Versions for the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 were released as launch titles in late 2020.
Fortnite is an online video game developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in three distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: Fortnite Battle Royale, a free-to-play battle royale game in which up to 100 players fight to be the last person standing; Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative hybrid tower defense-shooter and survival game in which up to four players fight off zombie-like creatures and defend objects with traps and fortifications they can build; and Fortnite Creative, in which players are given complete freedom to create worlds and battle arenas.
Apex Legends is a free-to-play battle royale-hero shooter game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in February 2019, for Nintendo Switch in March 2021, and for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in March 2022. A mobile version of the game designed for touchscreens titled Apex Legends Mobile was released in May 2022 on Android and iOS. The game supports cross-platform play, excluding the aforementioned mobile platforms.
Titanfall is a series of video games that mainly feature first-person shooter games. The series was created by Respawn Entertainment and debuted on Xbox and Microsoft Windows; it has expanded to other consoles and platforms.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is an upcoming first-person shooter survival horror video game developed and published by Ukrainian game developer GSC Game World. Set to release for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox Series X/S, it will be the fourth game released in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series, the first game in the series released on consoles, as well as the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 13 years since the release of Call of Pripyat in 2009.
