Starbreeze Studios AB
Moby ID: 3002
Overview edit · view history
Starbreeze Studios AB is a Sweden-based games development studio founded in 1999. The company develops computer and television games on pre-financed assignments from major game publishers. The publisher usually owns the rights to the production and carries the financial risk. If a game does well in the marketplace Starbreeze obtains additional sales-royalties after the pre-finance amount has been covered for the publisher.
In 2001 the company merged into O3 Games as their games development and R&D department. In November, the parent company was renamed Starbreeze AB, of which Starbreeze Studios AB is now a wholly-owned subsidiary.
The company released its first game, Enclave (Windows/Xbox) in 2002, followed by Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade (Xbox/PS2/GameCube/Windows) in 2004, along with the movie-licensed The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Windows/Xbox) in 2004. The company's first two games received favourable reviews, but it was the acclaim for the Riddick first-person shooter that really established Starbreeze Studios internationally.
The company's next game, The Darkness (Xbox 360/PS3), was another first-person shooter and is based on a comic book license. Released in 2007, it is the only Starbreeze game not to be released on the Windows platform.
In 2009 the studio returned to the Riddick license with the sequel The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena developed together with Tigon Studios and in 2012 they released another first-person shooter, Syndicate, for Electronic Arts, as a reboot of the Bullfrog series from the nineties. It was the last game of the company developed using an in-house engine, as they signed with Epic Games in February 2011 to use the UnrealEngine for all future projects.
In 2009 seven members left the company to found the development studio MachineGames Sweden AB. It was partly prompted by the rough development process of Syndicate, as the project went through several overhauls before it was released.
In April 2012 the company announced to acquire the Swedish studio SLG Everscreen AB (better known as Overkill Software). The transaction was completed on 21st June 2012 when Starbreeze acquired all shares from Varvtre AB. Through the acquisition, Varvtre raised its stake in Starbreeze from zero to 200 million shares (14,5%). On 9th February 2013 the name of the acquired studio was officially changed to Starbreeze Production AB, but it still refers to itself publicly as Overkill Software.
Credited on 14 Games from 1997 to 2024
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake (2024 on Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series) |
Payday 3 (2023 on Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series...) |
Payday 2: The Text Adventure (2019 on Browser) |
Raid: World War II (2017 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One) |
John Wick Chronicles (2017 on Windows) |
Dead by Daylight (2016 on Windows) |
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (2013 on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3...) |
Syndicate (2012 on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) |
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (2009 on Windows, Xbox 360, Macintosh...) |
The Darkness (2007 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One) |
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (2004 on Windows, Xbox) |
Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade (2004 on Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox...) |
Enclave (2002 on Windows, Xbox, Macintosh...) |
FastTracker 2 (included game) (1994 on DOS) |
History +
- 2001
-
Starbreeze Studios merged into O3 Games as their games development and R&D department.
- 1999
-
Company founded.
Trivia +
Starbreeze was founded by members of the demo group Triton
Related Web Sites +
-
Starbreeze Studios AB
official site
Frequent Collaborators
Companies- 19 games with Valve Corporation
- 3 games with Epic Games, Inc.
- 3 games with Keywords Studios QC-Interactive Inc.
- 3 games with NVIDIA Corporation
- 3 games with Audiokinetic Inc.
- 3 games with GOG Limited
- 2 games with Atari Europe S.A.S.U.
- 2 games with Computec Media GmbH
- 2 games with TopWare Interactive AG
- 2 games with Akella
- 8 games with Gustaf Grefberg
- 7 games with Anders Olsson
- 7 games with Magnus Högdahl
- 6 games with Henrik Håkansson
- 6 games with Emil Gustavsson
- 6 games with Theo Savidis
- 6 games with Jim Kjellin
- 6 games with Johan Althoff
- 6 games with Tom Fritzson
- 6 games with Patrik Karlsson
Browse Games
Contribute
Add your expertise to help preserve video game history! You can submit a correction or add the following: