10-12-2015 00:30
Respected online gaming publication Gamasutra has listed their top ten favourite video game developers of 2015. WeÔÇÖve had some great games from a number of talented developers so itÔÇÖs certainly interesting to see their picks. Nintendo fans will be glad to learn that┬áMonolith Soft and Nintendo EPD have been listed along with the likes of Bethesda and Blizzard. HereÔÇÖs their picks for the best game developers of 2015.
- Bethesda Game Studios
We noticed something about Fallout 4 after it launched. We noticed the same thing a couple weeks after launchand we continue to notice it a month later. People, across all different tastes and backgrounds are still talking about Fallout 4, and likely will be for the foreseeable future. The game is inescapable; its popularity hitting a kind of critical mass that has outdone most other, if not all, triple-A games this year.Bethesda-style RPGs already are inclined to provide emergent gameplay and personalized experiences, but throw in user-generated content, and launch it on multiple platforms that allow for easy game streaming, you get a thoroughly shareable game that finally feels like its at home. - Blizzard Entertainment
But beyond its market savvy, Blizzard deserves to be recognized for cultivating an environment where developers can work on a variety of projects with different scales, stakes, and design challenges. () Blizzard continues to experiment with new ideas and embrace popular shifts in the market while supporting its venerable franchises (and the developers who work on them), and for that we recognize it as a top developer of the year. - Colossal Order
We recognize Colossal Order as a standout developer of the year not just because it made a great city management game, but because it did so with less than 20 people, one-upping entrenched market leader SimCity in the process. The studio saw an opening, recognized there was an underserved audience, and capitalized on that fact brilliantly. - Davey Wreden, Everything Unlimited, Ltd.
With The BeginnerÔÇÖs Guide, Davey Wreden made a game that was ostensibly about game development, but it was in fact more purely about creating things and handing partial ownership of those things over to other people. ItÔÇÖs a game that walks the line between ÔÇ£about game developmentÔÇØ and ÔÇ£about the existential crisis of a creatorÔÇØ and it often loses balance, finding itself on either side of that line at different points in time. ItÔÇÖs all deliberate and brilliantly authored, and it resonated strongly with game developers. - Kojima Productions
HereÔÇÖs a doozy of a challenge for you: Take a beloved franchise, nearly two decades old, and known for its deep narrative and very specific style of handcrafted gameplay, and adapt it for the modern era of open-world gamesÔÇöwithout killing its soul or alienating its fans, and yet make it accessible and appealing to the players of today.The original 1998 Metal Gear Solid was itself a recapitulation of everything that made the first two 8-bit Metal Gear games into 1980s classics ÔÇö but reinterpreted for the original PlayStation, in 3D, and with an entirely new form of creative expression.Metal Gear Solid V may not be as epoch-making as that game, but it does prove that things like a singular creative vision, handcrafted levels, and an eye for idiosyncratic detail can thrive in an open-world game. These were not settled questions, by any means. If this is KojimaÔÇÖs last game for Konami, so be it ÔÇö there can be no question it was executed with the care and creativity weÔÇÖd expect. - Moppin
In a broader sense, Fumoto deserves to be recognized as an example of the sort of talent and creativity thatÔÇÖs brewing in the Japanese indie scene. His success this year with Downwell is a welcome one, and we look forward to seeing what he and his contemporaries do next. - Monolith Soft
The secret to understanding this it to consider that the ÔÇ£XenoÔÇØ series mastermind, Tetsuya Takahashi, has never lacked for ambitionÔÇöthough his reach, in the past, exceeded his grasp. Not so this time. ItÔÇÖs clear that itÔÇÖs the simple result of careful planning, long development experience, and hard work.And if Xenoblade Chronicles X had a mission statement, it would be ÔÇ£show the world that the Japanese RPG can stand toe-to-toe with Western ones.ÔÇØ Outside of the struggling Final Fantasy series, there are so few examples of the genre that can truly be classified as triple-A; yet hereÔÇÖs a game that has a truly staggering breadth of content (including both passive and active online modes alongside a deep and long single-player campaign) and which can legitimately wear that moniker. - Nintendo EPD
NintendoÔÇÖs internal development studio hit hard this year with two standout titles that were, in many ways, polar opposites.Super Mario Maker may sound like a gimme, but realistically, to execute on this premise so well, it requires the patient craft of experienced developers and creative leadership who fully understand the soul of their own franchise.Few teams can make a bold, playable, and distinctive game in a new genre the first time they tackle it; few games have as strong an identity as Splatoon, and certainly almost none approach its quality from a design perspective.Pulling all of this together shows the formidable skill of NintendoÔÇÖs internal development teams, indeed. - Psyonix
In a year that saw many developers try their hands at emulating established successes, we recognize Psyonix for sticking with ÔÇö and ceaselessly iterating on ÔÇö a set of core concepts that it knew, internally, would make for a great game if brought together in just the right way. Such tenacity in itself is admirable, so much more so when it brings about a game like Rocket League that will be played and talked about for years to come. - Tale of Tales
Even if the studio never made another game, the fact would remain that Tale of Tales is a developer that inspired and influenced a modern design apparent in games like Gone Home from Fullbright and SOMA from horror game studio Frictional Games, among others. And those games, and games like them, will continue to reach and inspire ever more developers.
