Formerly called
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Subsidiary | |
Industry | Video game industry |
Fate | Closed by parent |
Founded | 13 May 1988 |
Defunct | March 2010 |
Headquarters | Derby, England |
Number of employees
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5 (2010) |
Parent |
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Website | web |
Rebellion (Derby) Ltd (formerly Core Design Limited) was a British video game developer based in Derby, England. Founded in May 1988 by former Gremlin Graphics employees, it originally bore the name Megabrite until rebranding as Core Design in October the same year. The company was acquired by umbrella company CentreGold in 1994, which in turn was acquired by Eidos Interactive in April 1996. Following the latter acquisition, Core Design was re-organised as a subsidiary of Eidos Interactive, while other CentreGold components were either closed or sold off. In May 2006, the Core Design personnel and assets were acquired by Rebellion Developments, and the company became Rebellion Derby.
Based in the city of Derby, England, Core Design was founded in 1988 by Chris Shrigley, Andy Green, Rob Toone, Terry Lloyd, Simon Phipps, Dave Pridmore, Jeremy Heath-Smith, Kevin Norburn and Greg Holmes. Most were former employees of Gremlin Graphics. The studio was part of distribution company CentreGold when it was acquired by Eidos Interactive in 1996. Eidos subsequently sold most of CentreGold, but retained U.S. Gold, the owners of Core Design. Core had a brief history of producing titles for the Sega consoles, such as Thunderhawk for Mega-CD and the original Tomb Raider game for the Saturn.
The company is widely known for the Tomb Raider series. The first game was created by Toby Gard and Paul Howard Douglas, which was released in 1996 and followed by several sequels. The success of Tomb Raider and its subsequent sequels played a huge part in keeping Eidos Interactive financially solvent. After the successfulSaturn debut of the original Tomb Raider a full month and a half ahead of the PlayStation version, Sony decided to use the brand to boost sales of its own console. In September 1997, Sony's U.S. arm, SCEA, signed an exclusivity deal with Eidos to keep the franchise on their consoles. The agreement was extended to include Tomb Raider III. The fourth and fifth games in the franchise, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and Tomb Raider Chronicles respectively, were released for Sega Dreamcast.