 | |
| Creative Assembly | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1987; 38 years ago (1987) |
| Founder | Tim Ansell |
| Headquarters | , England |
Key people | Gareth Edmondson (studio director) |
| Products |
|
Number of employees | 882[1] (2023) |
| Parent | Sega (2005–present) |
| Subsidiaries | Creative Assembly Sofia |
| Website | creative-assembly.com |
The Creative Assembly Limited (trade name:Creative Assembly) is a Britishvideo game developer based inHorsham, founded in 1987 by Tim Ansell. In its early years, the company worked onporting games toMS-DOS fromAmiga andZX Spectrum platforms, later working withElectronic Arts to produce a variety of games under theEA Sports brand. In 1999, the company had sufficient resources to attempt a new and original project, proceeding to develop the strategy computer gameShogun: Total War which was a critical and commercial hit, and is regarded as a benchmark strategy game. Subsequent titles in theTotal War series were built following the success ofShogun: Total War, increasing the company's critical and commercial success.
In March 2005, Creative Assembly was acquired bySega and became part ofSega Europe.[2] An Australian branch was operated fromFortitude Valley, Queensland as Sega Studios Australia. Under Sega, furtherTotal War titles were developed, and Creative Assembly entered theconsole market withaction-adventure games such asSpartan: Total Warrior,Viking: Battle for Asgard andAlien: Isolation.
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Creative Assembly was founded in 1987 by Tim Ansell.[3][a] Ansell had begun professionalcomputer programming in 1985, working on video games for theAmstrad CPC,Commodore 64, andAtari 8-bit computers. Initially, Ansell kept the company small so he could personally work on computer programming. The company's early work, often produced personally by Ansell, involved porting games from theAmiga toMS-DOS, such as the 1989 titlesGeoff Crammond'sStunt Car Racer andShadow of the Beast byPsygnosis. Creative Assembly began work withElectronic Arts in 1993, producing titles under theEA Sports label, starting with the DOS version of the earlyFIFA games. With EA Sports, Creative Assembly was able to produce low development risk products bearing official league endorsements. The company's products includedRugby World Cup titles for 1995 and 2001, the game for the1999 Cricket World Cup and theAustralian Football League games for 1998 and 1999, of which theAFL 98 title was particularly successful in the Australian market. When it became clear that the company needed to expand further, Ansell employed Michael Simpson in 1996 as the creative director. Simpson, amicrochip designer turned video game designer, later became the driving force for the creative design of theTotal War series. Ansell left Creative Assembly after Sega acquired the developer in 2005. Later, Tim Heaton took over as the company’s studio director.
As a result of their success in sports titles, by 1999 Creative Assembly had sufficient resources and backing from Electronic Arts to develop more high risk titles in other genres. The result wasShogun: Total War, the company's breakthrough title. A blend ofreal-time tactics andturn-based gameplay,Shogun: Total War was announced in early 1999. The game focused theSengoku period of Japanese feudal history, and upon its release in June 2000 it was met with critical acclaim. The game won multiple industry awards and became regarded as one of the benchmark strategy video games.[6][7] Inhouse composerJeff van Dyck won both aBAFTA and anEMMA award for his work on the game's soundtrack.[6] In May 2001, Creative Assembly announcedThe Mongol Invasion, anexpansion pack focusing on the earlierMongol invasions of Japan. Released in August 2001, the expansion pack also received a positive response.
Soon after, Creative Assembly broke away from Electronic Arts, instead usingActivision as a publisher and distributor. In August 2001, Creative Assembly announced a secondTotal War, set in theMiddle Ages.Medieval: Total War was of a larger scope thanShogun: Total War, spanning a larger time period and the entirety of Medieval Europe. Released in August 2002, the game was a greater success thanShogun: Total War, becoming the best-selling video game in the UK for the first two weeks, and the fourth best-selling game in the US market in its first week. As withShogun: Total War,Medieval: Total War won multiple industry awards, and was named the top game of 2002 byPC Gamer.[8] Creative Assembly was awarded the "PC Game Developer of the Year" award at the 2003European Computer Trade Show.[9]Viking Invasion, an expansion pack focusing on theViking invasion of Britain in theDark Ages, was released in May 2003.
A thirdTotal War title was announced in January 2003. EntitledRome: Total War, the game featured a newgame engine toShogun: Total War andMedieval: Total War, and redesigned the approach to the series. Set during the lateRoman Republic and preliminary decades of theRoman Empire, the game's code was used for two television shows: theBBC'sTime Commanders[10] and theHistory Channel'sDecisive Battles.[11] Upon release in September 2004, the game was given praise, becoming one of the year's top ten best-selling titles.[12]
Despite speculation that Activision might buy Creative Assembly, as the publisher had done with previous successful developers under its wing,[13] the Japanese companySega announced on 9 March 2005 that they had sealed an acquisition deal with Creative Assembly,[13] purchasing all issuedshares in the company.[14] Sega explained that the acquisition was to strengthen Sega Europe's presence in the European and North American video game markets.[15] All preceding titles in theTotal War series had been exclusivelycomputer games. By July 2005, Sega had acquired the publishing rights toRome: Total War from Activision,[16] and built on the brand strategy by releasing two expansion packs:Barbarian Invasion in September 2005 andAlexander in September 2006.Spartan: Total Warrior was released in October 2005 onXbox,PlayStation 2 andGameCube, receiving a mixed reception from critics.[17][18][19]
Medieval II: Total War, the fourth title in the franchise, was announced in January 2006 and developed by the Australian branch of Creative Assembly.[20][21] It was a remake of the earlierMedieval: Total War using the new assets and technology behindRome: Total War. The game was released in November 2006, and although not as successful asRome: Total War,[22]Medieval II: Total War was still a critical and commercial hit, holding a place in the UK games charts in November 2006,[23] and in the US charts until the end of January 2007.[24] An expansion pack,Kingdoms, was announced in March 2007. The expansion received a positive reception from critics upon release in August 2007.[25]
At theGames Convention in August 2007, Creative Assembly announced new titles. The first,Viking: Battle for Asgard, was a console-exclusive title, similar in style toSpartan: Total Warrior, but focusing onNorse mythology.[26] The game was released in March 2008. It received an average reception from critics in the industry.[27][28] The second title was a fifthTotal War instalment,Empire: Total War, set in theearly modern period of the 18th century and early 19th century.[29] As was the case withRome: Total War,Empire: Total War features a redesigned approach to the series and a new game engine. It was released in March 2009, receiving high praise,[30] selling double the number of units sold ofMedieval II: Total War andRome: Total War. However, numerous significant issues were pointed out by critics after the release. Though there were numerous patches, not all of these were addressed by the abandonment of support for the game, which caused many to question Sega's influence on Creative Assembly.[31] In July 2008, Creative Assembly announcedStormrise. Unlike previous historically-based games,Stormrise is ascience fictionreal-time strategy game developed for both consoles and PC, released in 2009.[32]Stormrise received negative and mediocre responses, with criticisms focusing on broken pathfinding and the game's flawed control scheme (designed with the intent to create an easy interface for consoles).[33][34] In January 2009, Creative Assembly was joined by Tim Heaton, who serves as the company'sstudio director.[2]
The Australian branch of the Creative Assembly ported the first threeSonic the Hedgehog games and theSonic & Knuckles lock-on games toSonic Classic Collection. This compilation received overall positive reviews fromAussie-Nintendo andOfficial Nintendo Magazine, but criticised some speed issues when playing, rarely speeding up or slowing down and some graphical and sound glitches. Reviewers also criticised the removal of multiplayer in the games, previously available in earlier versions of the games. In 2010, the company releasedNapoleon: Total War, based on the exploits ofNapoleon Bonaparte to generally favourable reviews that praised the tightly scripted elements of a smaller, more focused campaign than its globe-spanning predecessor,Empire Total War.[35] The company releasedTotal War: Shogun 2 in 2011, to universal acclaim.[36] The title is the first to make the brandTotal War the main title, in an effort to increase brand awareness.[37]
On 6 December 2012, a partnership betweenGames Workshop and Creative Assembly was announced. Also announced was the creation of a newWarhammer Fantasy Battle game. On 5 April 2013, it was announced that Sega Studios Australia (formerly known as The Creative Assembly Australia) will be shut down later in the year.[38] On 3 September 2013, Creative Assembly releasedTotal War: Rome II. The game uses an updated Warscape engine and suffered from technical issues shortly after release which eventually led to Creative Assembly's creative director, Mike Simpson, apologising publicly for the widespread technical issues.[39] In the ten months following release, Creative Assembly released fourteen patches for the game, solving most technical issues and balancing gameplay. As of July 2014, the game currently stands at a rating of 76/100 on Metacritic by critics.[40]
Alien: Isolation is a first person stealth horror game based on the filmAlien.[41] The game was released on 7 October 2014 for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.[42] In 2016, the company released the gameTotal War: Warhammer, which was the first game in a trilogy.[43]
In February 2017, the studio releasedHalo Wars 2, which received positive reviews.[44] In March 2017 Creative Assembly announced the acquisition of Crytek Black Sea, which was shut down in December 2016.[45] This was the first studio opened by Creative Assembly abroad. The studio has been renamed toCreative Assembly Sofia.[46]
In September 2017, the studio released the second game in theWarhammer Fantasy series,Total War: Warhammer II. In May 2018, Creative Assembly then went on to release theThrones of Britannia, the first in its Saga Series. In February 2019, Creative Assembly announced the cancellation ofTotal War: Arena.
Total War: Three Kingdoms has been released as of 23 May 2019, and received positive reviews.Total War: Warhammer III was released on 17 February 2022.
On 28 September 2023, Sega announced it was cancellingHyenas.[47][48] As a result of the cancellation, an unknown number of employees were laid off from Creative Assembly.[49] In March 2024, Sega announced it would cut 240 roles acrossSega Europe, Creative Assembly andSega HARDlight.[50]
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