What is your favourite developer company? Mine is ID Tech because they made games like the original DooM games which have serious long standing modding support and Quake for some of those tense DM games!
What are yours?
Supergiant Games: Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades.
- Valve, when they actually make games… and when those games aren’t Artifact or Dota Underlords…
- id Software
- Telltale Games
- Frictional Games (Amnesia, SOMA)
- Red Barrels (Outlast)
- Playdead (INSIDE, LIMBO)
- Landfall (Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, ROUNDS, Clustertruck, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, etc)
- Daniel Mullins (Inscryption, Pony Island, The Hex)
- David Szymanski (DUSK, Chop Goblins)
- Mason Lindroth (Hylics)
- Obsidian’s older stuff
- Rocksteady’s older stuff
- I have a love/hate relationship with FromSoft
- Honorable mention to Nightdive: They do fantastic modern remasters of older games, like Quake 1 and 2, System Shock 2, Blood: Fresh Supply, etc.
I think klei may be my favourite studio. They create amazing games that are all truly unique but backed by strong game design concepts.
Mark of the ninja - great 2d stealth game were most games in the genre are 3d.
Invisible Inc - great turn-based Rougelike stealth game.
Don’t starve - probably one of the best survival games out there that relies on clever resource management rather than combat
Oxygen not included - a base building survival game, that is well designed to ramp up difficulty with the long term needs of your base
Griftlands - deck building game with a charming plot and interesting mechanics.
Each game they output is truly unique and interesting experience with some really clever design choices, but I think the point they became my favourite studio is when I read their article on Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic rewards to appreciate how well thought out their games were.
Yes, Klei, definitely!
They take any genre and create a really polished game in it. Then move on.
Plus - this is subjective - I like their art style.
- BioWare before EA (Mass Effect 1)
- Popcap before EA (Plants vs Zombies)
- Maxis before EA (SimCity 2000)
- Bethesda before Microsoft (Fallout 3)
Wube creators of Factorio.
Klei Creators of Oxygen Not Included and Don’t Starve.
Concerned Ape creator of Stardew Valley.
Hovgaard Games creator of Startup Company and Big Ambitions.I’m going to go a little unpopular here, and say Paradox Interactive.
Their milking of their properties with DLC is the stuff of legends, but at the end of the day, nobody else is even close at modeling rich, complex and hugely broad historical simulation the way they do. They’re everything I ever wanted when I was a kid, playing Koei strat games. When you’re that good at what you do, fine, make money. Whatever.
Oh, look. Another DLC… sigh
The DLC I’ll admit is what they are jokingly known for but someone could “find some treasure” can avoid that. But good answer nonetheless!
Insomniac, atlus
Coffee Stain Studios. In house, they’ve developed Goat Simulator and Satisfactory. They’ve also published Valhiem and Deep Rock Galactic.
Favourite is probably Naughty Dog as it’s one of the few studios that keeps producing amazing games and is fairly consistent.
Most other studios drop the ball at some point.
I can’t name a first party PlayStation studio that misses. They’re just so consistently great it blows my mind.
Id, Bioware, and Bethesda have all been mentioned, and are strong contenders.
Ludeon Studios and Ghost Ship Games each only really have one game (RimWorld and Deep Rock Galactic, respectively), but they’re so damn good and they both have such a strong relationship with their communities that they’re definitely among my favorites at the moment.
I have a love/hate relationship with Paradox Interactive. Their DLC model… leaves a lot to be desired, but I have yet to find much else that scratches the grand strategy itch in the same way they do, and the level of mod support they provide is impressive. I don’t know if I can call them my favorite, but I’ve logged over 1000 hours into EU4 alone, so I have to at least mention it, I feel.
- Valve
- From Software
- Re-Logic
- Team Cherry
- ppy
Developers change so much that it is hard to have a favourite anymore.
SCS have been going for a while now and are doing a great job with ETS2 and ATS, supporting the game and releasing/updating DLC regulary. It feels like a true passion project for them.
Most of favourites are small indie developers and games like Live For Speed, Software Inc, Ostriv.
I wouldn’t say I necessarily have favorite developers, since I’ve rarely played and enjoyed more than a single game from a developer. At least before that developer is closed or morphed into something else.
Currently, I would say Bethesda is probably my only favorite “developer” currently going. I actually enjoyed Starfield quite a bit and have enjoyed their games going all the way back to Morrowind. Not to mention, there still isn’t anyone else that has managed to act an alternative to their style of games.
Beyond them, I’m wracking my brain trying to come up with another developer that is still putting out games and that I would classify as a “favorite developer” and not just “a developer who makes one game I like”.
Edit: FROM Software, that’s what I was probably trying to think of. I’ve definitely enjoyed quite a few of there games.
There are four studios whose games (and hardware) I buy almost blindly:
- Valve
- CD Project RED
- Rockstar Games
- Machine Games
They all have brought me tons of fun and jaw dropping moments.
CD Project Red is still up there after Cyberpunk?
I played it on PC. And I loved it.
Capcom seems to pump out absolute bangers lately. They have multiple rock solid franchises (Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter) and their buisness model is still, make good game, sell good game, profit from sales. They don’t shove half-assed life service attempts down you throat and most importantly they don’t fuck fans over. It says a lot when your least acclaimed game over the past 5 years is RE3 Remake with “Very Positive” Steam reviews. I’m really looking forward to RE5 Remake and Monster Hunter Wilds.
