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Supergiant (on par with Trese Brothers)
FromSoftware has never made a game I didn’t enjoy. From their well known games like Dark Souls, Armored Core, and now apparently everyone on Earth knows about King’s Field, to their more niche titles like Metal Wolf Chaos, Kuon, and The Adventures of Cookie and Cream. Yes, I even liked Ninja Blade.
Except Steel Battalion for the Xbox 360 but that is entirely because Capcom mandated the Kinect be used for controls.
Also am a big fan of Konami, pre-2005. They never really had huge masterpieces aside from what Kojima and Team Silent made, but their other games were fun and varied, taking on almost an experimental position. Games like Gungage were very engaging, if a little short.
Capcom. I will never forget the little blue bomber.
Someone already mentioned them but I want to reiterate: Westwood Studios
I miss them.
Black Isle Studios.
Hands down, no contest.
If you’re looking for a name, Chris Avallone. Planescape: Torment and fucking New Vegas.
I only have one tattoo, and it is the Rune of Torment. That piece of art touched me.
Today One (aka Tarn Adams) who is making Dwarf Fortress and formerly worked on Liberal Crime Squad is way up there.
Redigit (of Super Mario Brothers X and Terraria) is another from the current era.
But if we can go oldschool, Sid Meier is a legend. Civilization and Pirates! are two absolute favorites, especially the remake of Pirates and Civs 2 & 4.
But the real OG, the man who showed me I wanted to make videogames, is Tim Sweeney. Sure, now he’s rich and famous, but back in the day, even before UnReal, he ran Epic Megagames out of his parents’ basement and sold floppies by mail. His first game, ZZT, came with the tools included to not just edit levels, but to make a whole new game of your own using the ZZT engine. By the time I discovered it there were already hundreds of user-made games being traded on BBS.
I fell in love. I joined the IRC channels and bulletin boards, I made the games I wanted, I shared them with my friends and over the Internet. It sparked a love in me that still burns today. Sweeney moved on, I moved on, but I will always owe him my regard for releasing ZZT into the world. It changed my life.
Sid Meier and Firaxis in general are probably the only ones that have been consistently great for me over the years. I still think about Alpha Centauri a lot, and I’ve played so much Civ over the years. His studio’s XCOM games and Midnight Suns are all great, too.
Pretty much all the others I could name closed up shop or have declined in recent years.
I don’t want to single out a favorite, but one who stands out is Tynan Sylvester. Not just for making RimWorld a good game, but for participating in unofficial community forums, discussing features and flaws discovered by players, and bringing a good attitude. This kind of openness helps improve things for everyone, IMHO. I wish it was more common.
West Wood studios and Bullfrog.
F
ConcernedApe! Can’t wait for his next game.
Supergiant
90s era Maxis, Bullfrog, Black Isle Studios, Troika Games.
JoWood also gets a special mention.
This is a more retro selection.
Wube
The factory must grow.
Now in space from October 20th.Larian Studios
And Naughty Dog during the PS3 era.
And Naughty Dog during the PS3 era
Not the PS2 era? Jak and daxter was the GOAT.
I tend to agree here. Their PS2 games were genuinely incredible. The PS3 ones are culturally iconic, but a lot of them are just… a cinema camera on wheels
Great games as well, but I was mostly playing on PC during the PS2 era. Loved their original Crash Bandicoot games as well. But Uncharted and also The Last of Us was pretty special to me.
Retro gaming?
Rare
Subset Games
