Website Official website Founded 2010, United Kingdom | Number of employees 115 (February 2017) Type of business Private | |
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Industry Computer and video games Key people Gavin RaeburnTrevor WilliamsRalph Fulton Video games Profiles | ||
Playground Games is a independent British video game developer located in Royal Leamington Spa, England, United Kingdom. They are known for developing the Forza Horizon series, which is part of the larger Forza franchise published by Microsoft Studios.
History
The development studio was established in 2010, by former employees of other well known British games developers, such as Codemasters, Bizarre Creations, Criterion Games, Ubisoft Reflections, Slightly Mad Studios, Black Rock Studio, Juice Games, Sony Liverpool and many other world-class developers that are known for their racing video games. At the 2012 Microsoft Showcase in California, Playground Games announced their first project, Forza Horizon. The title was developed in collaboration with Turn 10 Studios. The game was published by Microsoft, for the Xbox 360, and released on 23 October 2012. In September 2014 the studio released Forza Horizon 2, on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One, to critical acclaim and most recently Forza Horizon 3, on Xbox One and Windows 10, in September 2016. Their latest title Forza Horizon 3 scored a Metacritc of 91 making it the highest scoring exclusive game for the Xbox One.
In February 2017, the studio explained plans in an interview with gamesindustry.biz to open a new studio focusing on a non-racing game project.