Creative Assembly

Creative Assembly (officially The Creative Assembly Ltd ) is a .

Like many other British companies that appeared in the early 1990s, Sussex based The Creative Assembly originally dealt with DOS ports of Amiga and ZX Spectrum games such as Geoff Crammond s Stunt Car Racer or the popular Shadow of the Beast by Psygnosis, and the popular FIFA Series by EA Sports. Although based in the UK, Creative Assembly worked mostly with the Australian EA studios, which reflected on the titles produced with the Burnaby, British Columbia-based company - the official title of the 1995 Rugby Union World Cup and of the 1999 cricket World Cup, two games licensed by the Australian Football League ( AFL 98 and AFL 99 ), and a return to Rugby, with Rugby 2001 (which carried the license of the 1999 Rugby Union World Cup, but was delayed).

Although already well known inside the sports gaming comunity, the major breakthrough into the mainstream was the first game in the Total War series - Shogun: Total War . A mix between a turn based game similar to Koei s Nobunaga s Ambition and massive real time strategy, which could include thousands of units who were actually affected by weather and terrain conditions, the game set in Sengoku period Japan was a critical success and achieved massive sales. One expansion ( Mongol Invasion ) and two sequels, Medieval: Total War and Rome: Total War followed, both with their own expansions.

Given the potential of the Total War series and expertise with sports games, Sega acquired them on 9 March 2005 as a part of a company investment in European software houses for a reported sum of around US $ 30M.

=External links=

*[http://www.creative-assembly.co.uk/ Official website] *[http://www.creative-assembly.com.au/ Australian offices] *[http://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/creative-assembly-ltd/ MobyGames page] *[http://www.eurogamer.net/article.phparticle_id=58179 Eurogamer article on the deal with Sega]