FreeStyleGames has divorced Activision and married Ubisoft. Love is gorgeous.
In one other thrilling episode of “the games industry is a lot more interesting if you pretend its a soap opera”, Ubisoft has bought Guitar Hero Live developer FreeStyleGames from Activision.
Founded in Warwick in 2002, FreeStyleGames later moved to Slough, Berkshire. A workforce of former Rare and Codemasters staffers, it made its title jobbing for Sony on the Buzz collection. Activision bought the studio in 2008 and put it to work on two DJ Hero video games in addition to stacks of Guitar Hero content material.
It then spent most of its time in a help position for Activision, engaged on a number of Skylanders and Call of Duty video games earlier than getting one other likelihood to tackle main growth duties once more with Guitar Hero Live.
Although it reviewed properly and outsold some earlier Guitar Hero entries, Guitar Hero Live didn’t hit Activision’s gross sales targets, and Eurogamer stories the writer downsized the workforce in April 2014 to the tune of 50 workers – about half its whole employees.
Not probably the most loving relationship, there, so let’s hope the workforce discover consolation with Ubisoft. The studio has been renamed Ubisoft Leamington, Ubisoft has introduced, and will probably be working carefully with Ubisoft Reflections in Newcastle in addition to worldwide Ubisoft groups. You understand how Ubisoft does it – half a dozen world groups on each triple-A launch.
Ubisoft Leamington will probably be led by Richard Blenkinsop, who may also run Ubisoft Reflections now that former managing director Pauline Langourieux has stepped down so she will get her fingers soiled truly making video games once more.
Given the skillset of FreeStyleGames employees we’d anticipate to see the studio serving to out with Ubisoft’s Just Dance or Rocksmith titles, however Ubisoft Reflections is not concerned with music video games. It led growth on Grow Home and Grow Up, however has in any other case been jobbing on video games like The Crew, The Division and Ghost Recon Wildlands. Perhaps the truth that Ubisoft has acquired a helper for the workforce means we might even see a brand new Reflections-led mission over the subsequent few years.
Source
