TThe list of beloved video game development studios that have had a long history of success and acclaim that ended abruptly due to unfortunate closures is long. Unfortunately, more studios have closed over the years than you can easily keep up with, with some fans fondly remembering the many great games they made while they were still active.
One such developer was Evolution Studios, a name that at one point was kind of a force to be reckoned with when it came to the racing genre. Over the course of more than a decade, Evolution Studios released a number of critically and commercially successful titles, and yet after just one stumble in the early years of the PS4, the studio just disappeared. So what exactly happened? How did Evolution Studios go from a consistently successful team to one that parent company Sony said was no longer a viable operation?
Evolution, of course, had a long association with Sony – pretty much the studio’s entire existence saw it even being strongly associated with PlayStation. Not long after its founding in 1999, Evolution was quickly tapped by Sony to develop officially licensed World Rally Championship games for the PS2. agree. From there, Evolution focused exclusively on WRC, release a new episode every year until 2005 WRC: rally evolved, until the end of the PlayStation 2 era.
With the PS3 era, Evolution moved forward along with the rest of Sony, and after dropping the WRC license, decided to focus on something entirely of its own instead, in the process giving ownership to the studio. would be best known for. In the early months of the PS3’s life, the console saw the launch of engine storm, a much more dynamic and lively racing experience that was hailed as an early win for Sony’s new hardware.
The success of MotorStorm spawned a number of sequels, with MotorStorm: Pacific Rift and MotorStorm: Apocalypse launched for the PS3 in 2008 and 2011, respectively, with each game increasingly emphasizing the series’ more bombastic and explosive tendencies. That was a direction that suited most fans very well, but in 2012, when MotorStorm RC released for PS3 and PS Vita, it felt like the Steam series was running low.
Anyway, Evolution Studios certainly seemed to think so, as the development team had said: MotorStorm on the back burner and moved on to something they had apparently been waiting for a decade and now finally had the technology to properly realize the vision. That game later became known as DriveClub, and that game was the last game Evolution Studios ever developed.
Expectations were high for DriveClub, with Sony and Evolution making big promises for the racing title, and whipping up things like the visual fidelity and emphasis the experience placed on social functions and play within a connected community. To meet those expectations, DriveClub was delayed a number of times, but of course that only raised anticipation around the game’s launch. When it did launch, unfortunately, despite much of its strengths and merits, DriveClub simply could not reach the lofty heights that many had hoped.
Obviously, Sony wasn’t very happy with how the race title had turned out, as within months of its release, the company confirmed it had laid off more than 50 Evolution employees, which was roughly half of its full-time workforce at the time. studio workforce. The reason Sony presented for this drastic reduction was the desire to streamline Evolution so that the developer could focus on preserving DriveClub going as a live service title.
Of course that didn’t work either. DriveClub did get updates and patches and what have you got after its release but things just never picked up for the game the way Sony and Evolution needed them. In October 2016, Sony’s announcement that Evolution Studios didn’t come as a huge shock, as there had been plenty of signs pointing to that possibility in recent years, but it certainly came as a blow to many. After a string of consistently solid and successful games over the course of about ten years, Evolution had suddenly succumbed to the failure of just one game.
What’s interesting about the studio’s trajectory, however, is that that team has had ups and downs even after Evolution’s shutdown. Not long after Sony closed the studio, some of its members partnered with Codemasters and set up a new studio in Cheshire known as Codemasters Evo (although they were eventually renamed Codemasters Cheshire). Their first project was rushing, an arcade vehicular fighting game, but it turned out to be another hurdle for the team.
onrush had a great idea at its core, and it had some things going for it, but in the end it didn’t make a big impact on a critical or commercial front. Once again, Codemasters Cheshire was faced with layoffs, although this time at least the studio didn’t close… even though Codemasters Cheshire no longer exists. Earlier this year, EA announced that the studio would be used as a support team for Need for speed games ahead. Less than a month later, the Codemasters Cheshire company officially merged into Criterion Games, the developer responsible for Need for speed.
Whether there is much overlap between the former Codemasters Cheshire, which is now part of Criterion, and the Evolution Studios team that WRC on PS2 or MotorStorm on PS3 or even DriveClub on PS4 is a gamble, but given all the chopping and changing that team has seen over the years, the smart bet would be no. Of course, as part of that talent is still there, then that can only mean good Need for speed. After all, Criterion has had quite a bit of turbulence over the past ten years, meaning studio isn’t exactly what it was when it was at the top of the racing genre, either. The support of a team that is also well versed in the racing genre should hopefully lead to good things.
Anyway, there’s no denying that what happened to Evolution Studios was a huge disappointment to say the least. More than a few times, the developer proved he was capable of delivering solid racing titles, and he did so with games that often differed greatly from each other and offered things that not many of their peers did. It certainly hasn’t been easy for fans of racing games to watch that team stripped down over and over.
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