There are certain studios that get under your skin, irrespective of output. With the greatest of respect to all of the talented people at production powerhouses like Ubisoft Montreal and EA Canada, said developers don't really exude the kind of identifiable culture that's prevalent at Media Molecule or Guerrilla Games. It always hurts when any studio closes, of course – but it's worse when it's one that you feel like you have a personal connection with.
Evolution Studios, for me, was one of those.
This week's reveal that the Runcorn-based developer would be dissolved hit hard because it felt like it had weathered the storm. DriveClub was, of course, a disaster at launch – delayed and still not really ready for primetime. But the studio achieved the impossible: it not only fixed the game and repaired its reputation – but it also remodelled it as one of the generation's finest racers. Ironically, we'd been discussing writing our first ever re-review only last week.
Evolution Studios knew what was coming: ex-employees have been acting alarmingly upbeat online – disappointed that they've reached the end of the road, but proud of what they've achieved all the same. While this is still obviously all sad news, that's nice to see; in an industry that seems to feed off unexpected redundancies, it's refreshing that the Brit team got to send off DriveClub on their own terms – it named one of this week's DLC events 'The Long Goodbye', for example.
But if the truth be known, Evolution Studios has had miserable luck for many, many years now. MotorStorm Apocalypse immediately springs to mind – a game that was initially delayed globally due to the tsunami disaster in Japan, pushing it right into the middle of the PlayStation Network outage storm in North America. Despite receiving universal critical acclaim, the title flopped commercially for reasons entirely outside of the Runcorn developer's control.
MotorStorm RC, the outstanding PlayStation 3 and Vita spin-off, seemed to steady the ship, before DriveClub was instantly sucked into its own cyclone of bad press – mostly pertaining to the free PlayStation Plus version that was promised on an E3 stage, but seemed to take an age to be delivered. I'm not playing the blame game for any of these scenarios, but the studio has been locked in some kind of drama for years now.
And yet there's one consistent throughline spanning its early PlayStation 2 rally titles all the way through to DriveClub on the PS4: the studio's only ever made top-tier racing games. It proved with the WRC series that it could handle realism, before pivoting to the more bombastic with MotorStorm. And then, in DriveClub, it managed a mixture of both – an accessible arcade racer with all of the depth of a simulation, married to one of the best looking graphics engines on Sony's new-gen system.
But while I'll miss the dependability of Evolution Studios' output, I'm already mourning its underpinning identity – the drum-and-bass soundtracks, the distinctive user interfaces, and the perfectly honed handling models. The arcade racer has endured more than its share of setbacks in recent times, but the closure of Evolution Studios this week may have hammered the final nail in the genre's coffin.
At least I'll have many happy memories to look back on. Thanks for everything, Evo.
Comments 24
For a moment I misread the title that we were losing you sammy, phew. It's unfortunate to see so many bad things happen to a developer that tried so hard. Adios, Evo
100% agree and it truly depresses me that we will probably never see any more motorstorm, wipeout and driveclub titles
Evolution may not be a studio I'm too familiar with, but I remember seeing Motorstorm when it first released, and I played it to death. It was one of the few games that I've played on both my PS3s. Always love a good racer, and it really stinks to see a developer that made them go. Driveclub, despite it's launch, looks good and I'm looking forward to playing it.
Unless GT Sport is really good, and Forza stays good (I've been hearing it's been in a funk recently but someone will have to double check me on that), I'm sad for racers this gen, because there's EA (Need for Speed) and Ubisoft (Crew) left, and both their racing games sucked.
Closing zipper was also a mistake. Now this.. And to be fair the first party output is horrible. Knack is my favorite game of the launch and the uncharted trilogy comes a close second. That says a lot about Sony. Now with VR booming more resources will go to those studio's and when it flops Sony will again take the role of the reaper. See zipper or many other studio's that got closed because vita failed
@Sanquin Please watch the language -Tasuki-
I enjoyed the Motorstorm series and was disappointed when they decided to stop making these. I have always preferred more 'arcade' style racers than 'sim' based ones. Forza (in my opinion the best of these) still gets quite repetitive, racing round similar looking tracks over and over again, in slightly different cars - obviously look/sound different and handle a bit differently too but the difference can be negligible unless you go from a basic slow road car then to an S class and back again. I know the tracks have different backdrops, different shape to their tracks but they are all on Tarmac, all 'feel' similar etc. Compared to Motorstorm courses that had multiple routes, jumps, different surfaces and different vehicles racing together, its a lot more fun.
I'm rubbish at car games, but bloody loved Motorstorm: Pacific Rift. I'm going to miss them.
Just recently picked up the first motorstorm for .99 cents (steal!). Upon reaching the main menu and watching the desert festival goin on in the background as slipknots before i forget plays, you can feel that heart and soul that went into this game thats been clearly been lacking in games made by corporate companies such as EA for too long now.
No worries, Sony is making mobile games again. We should follow Konami.
"writing our first ever re-review only last week"
You should do this. The game deserves it as it's totally different to the one that launched and was reviewed...
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift was my favorite game in their works, had a blast playing it with my cousins. it makes me sad that i will never play MotorStorm 4 or any other games by Evolution Studios. i wasn't a fan of Driveclub but had high hopes for the sequel.
it's shame that Sony closed Evolution Studios when a week before this they asked Lionhead Studios to join their party, what the hell Sony?!!
I hated motorstorm 1 but really enjoyed motorstorm 3, I didn't really see room for driveclub on PS4 along side the eventual gran turismo.
@THEONE19 Sony didn't ask them to join Evolution, they own 5 other UK studios so they would have been recruiting for those.
At the end of the day business is business and you do have to wonder whether it was worth Sony having two studios that just make racing games especially when one was just doing DLC at this point. The Evo guys will be fine because Sony has a good track record with continuing to work with former employers, David Jaffe etc.
@Sanquine To be honest the latest Socom was terrible but i agree crossing firstparty studio's. I will miss Evolution Studios Driveclub was great and i hope we will see a new Motorstorm. But i would love to a new Heavenly Sword to it was short but awsome. Its always sad to see a great or just a studio close always sad to see a piece of history go.
@Dodoo I totally agree with that rhey deserve that.
@adf86 i didn't say Sony wanted them for Evolution Studios!!!!!
what i mean is that when Sony has good studios it's better to keep them running and has its focus on them, not ask Ex-Microsoft employees to work for them when their own studios are in danger.
and to be clear i have nothing but respect for Lionhead Studios, but Lionhead is't a priority for Sony, Evolution was.
in a time when Microsoft has two great racing series (Forza Horizon & Forza Motorsport) Sony needed Evolution especially when Polyphony Digital is as slow as a turtle in making the next GT game.
I am not the greatest at racing games, but MotorStorm was genuinely fun. And Evolution will be missed. If it was the location that made Sony want to close the studio, couldn't they have just moved the studio? There are plenty of countries willing to provide benefits for game devs. Maybe I'm still mad, but In my opinion they were one of the better developers.
Almost everyone who bought a PS3 at launch, and coincidentally didn't have any food for two months straight, has a soft spot for Motorstorm and for me that's no different. There wasn't much to choose from back then but with the magic combo of Motorstorm and Heavenly Blade you didn't really care. Motorstorm didn't only play great, it was best showcase to convince friends, and mostly yourself, that the PS3 was worth it not driving a car for. The graphics were breathtaking and with the good ol' six axis you could show off motion controls as well.
I've had so much fun with every other Motorstorm since then and it struck a beautiful balance between arcade and more sim style racing: every vehicle handled completely different and felt "lifelike", but the concept of the game and its presentation reminded me so much of the arcades in the mid 90s. The games had charm and were above all just plain fun to play, something excellent racers like GT and Forza lack to be honest. Driveclub is an excellent game and although it didn't reinvent the genre, it had a very distinct feel which brought some of the Motorstorm fun to the handling of the car and some of the tracks.
I guess I'll never see a Motorstorm again, which makes me quite sad. After playing Pacific Rift for old times sake yesterday I realized that Mororstorm equals PS3 for me, a console I truly adore. I've had some troubles "adjusting" to the PS4 because I still feel that the PS3 did lots of things better and the PS4 doesn't offer great value thus far; sure, some of the graphics look better but the PS3 looked just fine and the only real noticeable improvement in Uncharted 4 for example will be the new DualShock to play it with. Motorstorm is a game that embodies that feeling you have when you enter a new generation of hardware, it embodies Evolution.
@NomNom If they move countries they may as well close the studio. You have to imagine most of the developers have families, etc and wouldn't want to up sticks and move abroad.
Now this has happened - Runcorn has nothing going for it.
Other than 2 pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.
A sad day for everyone situated in the bowels of the North West. These guys should team up with the old Sony Liverpool team and make the best driving game ever.
I really liked Motorstorm, but I didn't care for Motorstorm: Apocalypse at all, I thought it drifted to much from the previous games. It seemed to me that Evolution studios wasn't so much unlucky, they sucked when it came to actually executing the games properly. They were going to do "this and this", and instead we got "that and that". The execution for Driveclub was a complete nightmare, it was just flat out bad.
I don't think I'll miss this studio much at all.
I own and loved all three of the Motorstorm games for PS3...play them to death! The graphics and controls were great for a racing game. I never played Drive Club yet, but I would like to get the title...seems like now is the perfect time to get that game, before it is no longer found. They were a great company that made great racing games. Hopefully, the developers still continue to work with Sony on other projects.
@crazykcarter I'm glad I wasn't the only one that thought the graphics were awesome! I bought the PS3 Motorstorm bundle and was blown away by how great the racer was! Apocalypse was my next in line for favorite Motorstorm game!
I remember when Motorstorm Apocalypse was supposed to come out initially, and then it got delayed because of the Tsunami in Japan. I was working at Gamestation at the time, and we already had boxes of the game in the stockroom waiting to go on sale, but we couldn't put it out. A real shame. We had a whole marketing plan for the release, but then the delay came and then by the time they decided to reschedule it the game wasn't treated like a new release anymore. It just got placed on the shelf back catalog with everything else so no one really noticed it. It must have been the same in all GAME and Gamestation stores which, at the time, were still a primary destination for buying games (this was before they went into administration in early 2012).
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