The Creative Assembly is a leading computer games developer based in Sussex in the UK. Creative Assembly is focused on producing high quality games that gamers want to play. With millions of copies sold, and hundreds of awards including a BAFTA to our name, we hope we’ve shown we know something about that goal.

Founded in 1987, the company has steadily expanded and now has over 140 permanent staff. Staff turnover has been extremely low giving the company a stability and depth of experience that’s far from standard in the games industry. We find that people come to work here and decide to stay.

History
Here is a bit of company history. Humour us. It’s quite short, and mostly interesting, except for the fact that there are no battles, plagues or murdered kings like there are in ‘proper’ history…

In the beginning we produced conversions for publishers such as Firebird (the PC conversion of Geoff Crammond’s Stunt Car Racer – a true classic) and Psygnosis (Shadow of the Beast and Microcosm) before starting to work with Electronic Arts to produce the PC version of the first FIFA game.

The EA relationship was long and successful, including work with Electronic Arts South Asia Pacific (EASAP), because Sussex is, of course, an important island in the Pacific Rim rather than being an English county to the south of London.

Good sports

One of our early successes was pioneering the use of interactive commentaries in sports games, when the enhanced CD-ROM version of FIFA used Tony Gubba’s voice during play. Using sportscasters to add realism has now become a feature of all sports-based games, so much so that games players might not even think of it as being anything special. It was a pretty wonderful first at the time, though! Other EA titles included Rugby World Cup 1995, Australian Rules Football 98 (AFL98), AFL99, Cricket World Cup 99, and Rugby 2001.

AFL98, for example, was a huge hit in its home market (Australia) because it was faithful to the original game and didn’t compromise on quality. Aiming at niche sports with high quality titles is always a hit with sports fans: they will buy games that give their chosen sport the proper attention and respect. This sports specialisation had three results: it enabled us to produce low (development) risk games; allowed the creation of a state-of-the-art 3D engine, optimized for team sports; and provided us the reserves to develop into a different, high risk, genre of games.

Turning Japanese

This new genre was real time strategy games for the PC, a genre with a critical and knowledgeable audience who demand extremely high standards in their games. The result of all the effort was Shogun: Total War™, a game that recreated the violent and exciting era of the samurai in what all reviewers agreed was absorbing detail and superb gameplay.

Shogun: Total War rapidly established itself as a new “classic” game of its type. It’s a number 1 best seller and was from the day of release. It was nominated for BAFTAs and EMMAs and oodles of other awards and won a heap of them too. If the company had a mantelpiece, it would groan under the weight of award-shaped metal and big scrapbooks of clippings that say nice things. Reviewers and gamers used Shogun: Total War as a benchmark against which other titles were measured. Shogun: Total War changed the way strategy games are defined.

Shogun: Total War also spawned its own on-line community of players, pundits, heroes, webmasters, fansites and the just plain obsessed (including the guy who had the Shogun warrior mask logo tattooed on his leg). There wasn’t a single aspect of the game that wasn’t given a good workout by these guys, and their dedication is just way too important not to acknowledge. They helped make the game as excellent as it is through their enthusiastic support.

Getting Medieval

With Medieval: Total War, CA moved into a new business relationship with Activision, one of the world’s leading game publishers. Both the Creative Assembly and Activision were committed to making Medieval: Total War a must-have game of 2002, and another benchmark product for the games industry. In this, they succeeded.

Medieval: Total War scooped another mantelpiece of awards and plaudits from critics, magazines and players alike. The game’s popularity was confirmed when Viking Invasion was released in 2003, and the expansion pack remains a ‘must have’ product for all Total War fans.

Rome wasn’t built in a day

Rome: Total War became the latest multi-award winning Total War series to whip up a storm of critical acclaim in 2004. Averaging a review score of 92% Rome: Total War has not just won over the RTS fans but has wooed the more casual gamer with its stunning cinematic battles and epic historical gameplay.

Rome Total War was one of CA’s biggest commercial successes. It has continued to sell worldwide since its first release and inspired a large and talented mod community, without whom the game would not continue to have the appeal it does.

Total Warrior

Spartan: Total Warrior for the PlayStation®2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube, represented the development giant’s first game in the new Total Warrior franchise. Total Warrior takes the core brand values of epic cinematic battles from Total War and redefines them for console producing a new genre of epic combat games. Spartan: Total Warrior had a world-wide release in October 2005.

SEGA buy The Creative Assembly

(March 9, 2005) “The deal sees SEGA acquiring a company at the very pinnacle of games development – a unique group of talent, second to none, with an outstanding global reputation. The style and genre of The Creative Assembly’s games perfectly complements SEGA’s own long-term strategic vision, and SEGA will empower the team to continue on their existing development path whilst also expanding their resources for the future. SEGA is supporting The Creative Assembly to develop the Total War strategy series, as well as exploring ambitious new ventures.”

Viking: Battle for Asgard

In the meantime, our UK console team were busy making their next game. Viking: Battle for Asgard was an action-packed adventure set in the world of Norse Mythology. Players took control of the protagonist, Skarin, as he hacked and slashed his way through the realm of Midgard.

The epic battles were a reminder of scenes found in many Total War games – with hundreds of characters onscreen at once, but placed the player right at the heart of the action. Viking was released in 2008.

To the era of Empires

In 2009, The Creative Assembly released the next game in the Total War franchise – a game they had been working on since Rome: Total War. Larger in scope than any previous title in the franchise, Empire: Total War redefined strategy on a global scale. PC Gamer called it “One of the most playable and therefore important and accomplished games ever created”, awarding it a score of 94%. Others agreed – not least the British Academy, who awarded Empire the BAFTA for Best Strategy game.

A year later, the standalone expansion Napoleon: Total War was released. Napoleon remained focused on warfare in the 18^th Century – this time pitting players as the French leader. Gamers had the chance to take Napoleon from his roots as a young soldier, all the way through to his conquest of Europe – even potentially succeeding where he ultimately failed.

Both games have a number of items of DLC available, not least the well-received Warpath Campaign for Empire: Total War and the equally-successful Peninsular Campaign for Napoleon.

Rising sun

Shortly before E3 in 2010, CA announced the latest game in the Total War series. Shogun 2: Total War returns to Feudal Japan 10 years after the release of the original Shogun: Total War. It will incorporate the best of CA’s learning and development experience over the decade to make this Shogun every bit as revolutionary as the last.

Inspired by the ancient teachings of Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”, Shogun 2 will feature simple to understand, but deeply strategic gameplay. Shogun 2 is truly “The Zen of Total War”. Shogun 2 is due for release in 2011.