Rebellion Developments

Rebellion Developments Ltd.

Type	Private
Industry	Video game industry
Genre	Video games, comics and books
Founded	4 December 1992 (1992-12-04)
Founder	Jason Kingsley Chris Kingsley
Headquarters	Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Jason Kingsley (CEO) Chris Kingsley (CTO) Kevin Floyer-Lea (PD) Tim Jones (CD) Chris Payton (AD)
Products	Sniper Elite series
Number of employees	180 (2016)
Divisions	Rebellion Liverpool[1]
Subsidiaries	Rebellion Publishing Abaddon Books 2000 AD Solaris Books
Website	rebellion.co.uk

Rebellion Developments Ltd. (commonly referred to as Rebellion) is an English video game developer based in Oxford, England, known for its Sniper Elite series and multiple games in the Alien vs. Predator series. Rebellion has published comic books since the year 2000, in which it purchased 2000 AD (publisher of characters such as Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper). The company launched its own book imprint, Abaddon Books, in 2006.

History

Rebellion was established by brothers Jason and Chris Kingsley in 1991. The team was later expanded to include artists Stuart Wilson, Toby Banfield, and Justin Rae and programmers Mike Beaton, Rob Dibley, and Andrew Whittaker. This expanded team was hired initially in order to work on two Atari Jaguar titles, one of which was the high profile release Alien vs Predator (1994).^[2]

In June 2000, they bought the comic 2000 AD from Fleetway,^[3] and have since developed several characters from the comic for the games market. The first commercial release, Judge Dredd: Dredd Vs. Death was mildly successful. A second game was released in 2006 based on Rogue Trooper. Its 2005 game Sniper Elite was awarded "Best PC/Console Game" in the TIGA Awards of 2005.^[4]

In 2004, Rebellion entered a deal with DC Comics to reprint several 2000 AD stories in trade paperback form, including Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Nikolai Dante, and Sinister Dexter. When DC left the venture, citing poor sales, Rebellion created its own line of American graphic novels, distributed through Simon & Schuster. In 2005 Rebellion also created the Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files series, which has begun reprinting almost every appearance of Judge Dredd in chronological order.

In 2006, following the demise of Elixir Studios, Rebellion purchased all IP related to the studio, including Evil Genius and Republic: The Revolution.^[5] Later, in 2009, Jason Kingsley confirmed rights ownership of former Vivendi franchises sold before merging with Activision in 2008, as well as the intention of making new sequels of those and Elixir Studios games.^[6]

In 2006, Rebellion purchased Tomb Raider developers Core Design from Eidos Interactive, as well as Strangelite from Empire Interactive, making the company the largest independent European development studio. Rebellion launched their novel imprint Abaddon Books and made a number of publishing purchases. These included buying Clickwheel, which was used to digitally published 2000 AD,^[7] with archives^[8] and an online iPhone comic reading application^[9] launched later. Rebellion was awarded the Develop Industry Excellence Award 2006 for Most Improved Studio.^[10]

In August 2008, Blackfish Publishing, publisher of Death Ray magazine, announced it had been bought by Rebellion.^[11] In September 2008, Rebellion acquired Mongoose Publishing,^[12] who had previously published games like The Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game.

In 2009, Rebellion's Rogue Warrior game received poor reviews but notable titles have included Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron for the PlayStation Portable. In 2010, they developed the latest Aliens vs. Predator game, published by Sega, which received a mixed critical reception, but debuted at number one on the UK all formats chart.^[13] As of June 2011, it is the fastest-selling game of 2010 in the UK, a record previously held by BioShock 2;^[14] it was also the best-selling game on Steam, as well as on the retail PC charts.^[15] Along with developing the title's characters for video games, Rebellion continues to publish 2000 AD as well as its sister title the Judge Dredd Megazine.

In June 2009, it was announced^[16] that Rebellion had acquired the role-playing and board games publisher Cubicle 7. In September 2009, Rebellion acquired Solaris Books from Games Workshop.^[17]

Two games from Rebellion are being released in 2012: NeverDead, published by Konami and directed by Shinta Nojiri (who was involved in the development of the Metal Gear Solid series of games), and Sniper Elite V2, which is being co-published with 505 Games. In July 2013, Rebellion bought the Battlezone and the Moonbase Commander franchises from the Atari bankruptcy proceedings.^[18]

In 2014, a sequel to Sniper Elite V2, Sniper Elite III was released.

In September 2015, Rebellion announced that the Sniper Elite series has now passed 10 million copies sold worldwide and is also celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.^[19]

In August of 2016, Rebellion acquired the post-1970 IPC Youth and Fleetway comics libraries from Egmont. ^{[20] [21]}

Video game studios

Active

• Rebellion Liverpool

Defunct

• Rebellion Derby

Rebellion group of companies

• Rebellion Developments (video game developer)
• Fearnort Production (film production company)
• 2000 AD (comic and trade paperback publishing company)
• Abaddon Books (horror, science fiction and fantasy book publishing company)
• Solaris Books (science fiction and fantasy book publishing company)

List of video games developed

List of games published by Rebellion

These games were originally developed and published by other companies, but were subsequently acquired and re-published by Rebellion:

• Evil Genius (2009, PC). Originally developed by Elixir Studios and published in 2004.
• Republic: The Revolution (2009, PC). Originally developed by Elixir Studios and published in 2003.
• Empire Earth: Gold Edition (2009, PC). Originally developed by Stainless Steel Studios and published in 2001. The expansion pack was released in 2002.
• Ground Control + Expansion (2009, PC). Originally developed by Massive Entertainment and published in 2000.
• Ground Control II: Operation Exodus SE (2009, PC). Originally developed by Massive Entertainment and published in 2004.
• Lords of the Realm: Royal Edition (2009, PC). Originally developed by Impressions Games and published in 1994. This includes Lords of the Realm II published in 1996.
• Lords of the Realm III (2009, PC). Originally developed by Impressions Games and published in 2004.
• Lords of Magic: Special Edition (2009, PC). Originally developed by Impressions Games and published in 1998.
• Woolfe - The Red Hood Diaries (2015, PC). Originally developed by GriN Gamestudio and published in 2015.
• Battlezone 98 Redux (2016, PC). Developed by Big Boat Interactive.

References

External links

• Official website