Creative Assembly
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Founded | 18 August 1987 |
| Founder | Tim Ansell |
| Headquarters | Horsham, West Sussex, United Kingdom |
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Number of locations
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4 (2017) |
|
Key people
|
Tim Ansell Michael Simpson Al Bickham |
| Products | Total War series |
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Number of employees
|
~500 (2017) |
| Parent | Sega Games Co., Ltd. |
| Subsidiaries | Creative Assembly Sofia |
| Website | creative-assembly.com |
Creative Assembly is a British video game developer established in 1987 by Tim Ansell and based in the West Sussex town of Horsham. In its early years, the company worked on porting games to DOS from Amiga and ZX Spectrum platforms, later working with Electronic Arts to produce a variety of games under the EA Sports brand. In 1999, the company had sufficient resources to attempt a new and original project, proceeding to develop the strategy computer game Shogun: Total War which was highly successful for Creative Assembly and is regarded as a benchmark strategy game. Subsequent titles in the Total War series built on the triumph of Shogun: Total War, increasing the company's critical and commercial success.
In March 2005, Creative Assembly was acquired by Sega as a European subsidiary. An Australian branch was operated from Fortitude Valley, Queensland (Sega Studios Australia). Under Sega, further Total War titles were developed, and Creative Assembly entered the console market with action-adventure games such as Spartan: Total Warrior, Viking: Battle for Asgard and Alien: Isolation. The company is currently working on four different Total War projects and Halo Wars 2.
Creative Assembly was founded on 18 August 1987 as a limited company. The founder, Tim Ansell, had begun professional computer programming in 1985, working on video game titles for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and Atari 800. Initially, Ansell kept the company small so he could personally work on computer programming. The company's early work, often produced personally by Ansell, involved porting games from the Amiga platform to DOS, such as the 1989 titles Geoff Crammond's Stunt Car Racer and Shadow of the Beast by Psygnosis. Creative Assembly began work with Electronic Arts in 1993, producing titles under the EA Sports label, starting with the DOS version of the early FIFA games. With EA Sports, Creative Assembly was able to produce low development risk products bearing official league endorsements. The company's products included official Rugby World Cup titles for 1995 and 2001, the official game for the 1999 Cricket World Cup and the Australian Football League games for 1998 and 1999, of which the AFL 98 title was particularly successful in the Australian market. When it became clear that the company needed to expand further, Ansell employed Michael Simpson in 1996 as Creative Director. Simpson, a microchip designer turned video game designer, later became the driving force for the creative design of the Total War series. Ansell left Creative Assembly after SEGA acquired the developer in 2005, later on, Tim Heaton took over as Studio Director.
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