March 29, 2024

Today Codemasters, the studio behind successful Grid and Dirt series hired the employees of “recently closed” Evolution studios who produced the Ps4 exclusive Driveclub last year. This acquisition also brought some good news as Codemasters now became the single largest studio primarily focused on the racing game and simulators and also they turned a console exclusive studio in a Multiplatform one. Today Paul Rustchynsky announced on Twitter about this acquisition, confirming the official end of his 12-year-old run as head of Evolution studios and also announcing his involvement in a new IP:

Codemasters

Last month Sony announced they were shutting Evolution studios without any prior notifications to their employees. This is now a trend as couple of months ago Microsoft Studios also closed
Lionhead studios who were working on the first cross-platform title for the Windows 10 ecosystem “Fable Legends” along with Press Play studios leaving the future of the employees in doubt. Evolution studios first worked on Motorstorm which released as PS3 exclusive and with Driveclub they attempted to rewrite the whole racing genre by introducing things such as online racing community, over the top graphical enhancements such as dynamic weather and authentic track racing catered for both racing enthusiasts and casual gamers. But Driveclub launch was not that smooth, which everyone thinks is the main reason Sony got rid of the studio. Broken multiplayer, unnecessary delay made the most anticipated and highly publicized PS4 exclusive pale. But this acquisition doesn’t cover everything as Sony still owns the Driveclub IP and the game is still exclusive to Ps4.

Along with this Sony’s Mick Hocking who was the mastermind of Sony’s 3d gaming development back in 2010-2011 and also managed Evolution studios before the unexpected closure has also joined hands with Codemasters as a vice president of product development. Mick Hocking said and we quote. ” We’ve got the opportunity to write new tech on multiple platforms for the first time, to work on new ideas, it’s really exciting. It’s really the core team we’ve brought across.”

Seems like Codemasters has made a great move by bringing in the entire Evolution studio employees for a whole new IP and it also paves the path for a great future of racing games especially on PC after Need for Speed lost their Midas touch on this genre.