Type Subsidiary Website bighugegames.com Founder Brian Reynolds | Products Rise of Nations series Headquarters Maryland, United States Parent organizations 38 Studios, Nexon, THQ | |
Industry Computer and video games Key people Brian Reynolds
Tim Train
David Inscore
Jason Coleman
Vinh Trinh
Bryant Freitag
Dan Halka
Ken Rolston
Grant Kirkhope Founded February 2000, Lutherville, Maryland, United States Video games Rise of Nations, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Rise of Nations: Rise of L, Rise of Nations: Thrones, Age of Empires III: The Asia Profiles | ||
Big huge games is making history
Big Huge Games is a video game developer located in Timonium, Maryland. The company was founded in February 2000 by four veteran game industry developers: Tim Train, David Inscore, Jason Coleman and Brian Reynolds (lead designer of Alpha Centauri, et al.). Their first game, Rise of Nations, was a critical and commercial hit. The original studio became defunct in May 2012, but the name "Big Huge Games" was later reacquired by Reynolds and Train for their new venture (previously known as SecretNewCo). The revived studio released the mobile game DomiNations on Android and iOS in April 2015.
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History
Although Brian Reynolds was a founding member of Firaxis Games, he and the others left Firaxis to found a new company based on their desire to apply the complexity and concepts of the turn-based strategy genre to the real-time strategy genre.
In February 2007, Big Huge Games announced that Ken Rolston, the lead designer behind The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, had come out of retirement to join the company as lead designer on an untitled role playing game (RPG). Later that May it was announced that THQ would publish the title in 2009. This marked the first title from Big Huge Games that was not distributed by Microsoft.
Acquisition by THQ
On January 15, 2008, THQ acquired the developer.
On July 30, 2008, Grant Kirkhope joined the Big Huge Games team as an audio director. He had previously worked for Rare, composing for the Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark games (among others).
On March 18, 2009, THQ announced that due to declining economic conditions, it would close Big Huge Games unless an outside buyer could be found in the next 60 days.
Acquisition by 38 Studios
On May 27, 2009, 38 Studios announced that they were acquiring Big Huge Games and retaining 70 employees out of approximately 120 who were at THQ.
From mid-2009 to January 2012, Big Huge Games developed a single player role playing game titled Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which was released in early February 2012 and published by Electronic Arts (EA) and 38 Studios for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The game is set in a fantasy world created with input from R A Salvatore and Todd McFarlane.
It was reported on May 24, 2012 that the studio and their parent company 38 Studios had laid off their entire staff.
Formation of Epic Baltimore
In June 2012, Epic Games announced the opening of a new studio in Baltimore called Epic Baltimore. The studio consists of a significant portion of ex-Big Huge developers. It was later renamed Impossible Studios. Impossible Studios was officially closed on February 8, 2013.
Revival, acquisition by Nexon
In October 2014, it was revealed that Reynolds and Train had acquired the name "Big Huge Games" at auction from the state of Rhode Island, which owned it following the bankruptcy of 38 Studios. This name was given to their new venture founded in 2013, which was formerly known as SecretNewCo. The new studio developed a game for mobile platforms called DomiNations, for release on iOS and Android. It is published by Nexon's mobile gaming group. and was released for Android and iOS in April 2015.
The game had been a major success; as of March 2015, it had been downloaded over 19 million times. On March 9, 2016, Nexon announced that it had acquired Big Huge Games; the studio will continue to produce new titles and maintain DomiNations.
Game engine
Big Huge Games made use of their internally developed game engine, the Big Huge Engine, in both Rise of Nations and Catan. The engine features support for a variety of applications and technologies, including physics, artificial intelligence, animation, and others.
Unreleased
At the time of their move from THQ to 38 Studios, Big Huge Games was working on two large game projects, which are now canceled.