Revolution Software Limited is a British video game developer based in York, founded in 1989 by Charles Cecil, Tony Warriner, David Sykes, and Noirin Carmody.
Company history
1992–1994: Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky
The company's logo was inspired by the 1981 film Excalibur and designed in collaboration with a graphic design firm in Hull.
Released in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS platforms, Lure of the Temptress was both critically and commercially a success, which helped set the company up for their future game releases. Revolution released the game as freeware on 1 April 2003.
Their next game was released in 1994; Beneath a Steel Sky became a hit on the Amiga and IBM PC compatibles. The game focused on protagonist Robert Foster's abduction and subsequent search for answers in a dystopian city of the future. In that period they also ported Sierra's King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow to the Amiga. Virtual Theatre system was used instead of Sierra's Creative Interpreter because of its much better performance.
1996–1997: Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars and Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror Despite the success of Beneath a Steel Sky, it was the company's next game that they would become best known for, and which would have both the biggest critical and commercial success. Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars was released for PC and PlayStation in 1996 and was later ported to the Game Boy Advance in 2002. The game revolves around the story of George Stobbart, an American tourist whose holiday in Paris is rudely interrupted by a bombing. Investigating, he runs into photo-journalist Nicole Collard, and the two embark on a globe-trotting adventure. The hand drawn graphics, story and characters, and gameplay helped cement the company's reputation for story driven games. The game was quickly followed by a well-received sequel, Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror. According to Charles Cecil, each of the first two Broken Sword games sold around a 1,000,000 copies in the mid-1990s.
2000: In Cold Blood and Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado
In July 2000, the company released their first 3D game In Cold Blood for the PlayStation (later released for Microsoft Windows in October 2000). Set in the near future, the game featured John Cord, an MI6 agent. Sent to the fictional, former Soviet region of Volgia, the player embarks on a mission to investigate a newly discovered substance, Blue Nephrine. However, Cord is betrayed and must work out by whom, while simultaneously trying to work out what plans the dictator of Volgia, General Nagarov, has for this mysterious new chemical and the implications for the world.
In December 2000, the company also released a children's adventure game Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado to coincide with the release of the film The Road to El Dorado.
2001–2002: Good Cop Bad Cop cancellation
The company then started work on Good Cop Bad Cop, an action game for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube. However the game was eventually cancelled so that the company could concentrate on Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon.
2003–2006: Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon and Broken Sword: The Angel of Death Released in November 2003, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon featured 3D graphics, and moved away from the 2D point-and-click style of older games. As the game was developed for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2 and Xbox simultaneously, they decided to implement a direct control mechanism for the protagonist, instead of mouse control clicking on hot spots, as this was easier to convert to console game pads.
Revolution released Broken Sword: The Angel of Death on 15 September 2006. At the start of the game, George is working as a bail bonds clerk, when he falls in love with Anna-Maria, a woman who asks George to help her find an artifact.
2009–2011: Director's Cut and Remasters
On 1 March 2009, Revolution Software released a director's cut version of their first Broken Sword series, titled Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – Director's Cut, for Wii and Nintendo DS platforms (later on iOS, Microsoft Windows and OS X). According to a Charles Cecil interview with Pocket Gamer, the iOS version of the Director's Cut sold around 160,000 copies by December 2010. The company also announced that The Director's Cut is coming soon to Android.
In October 2009, Beneath a Steel Sky – Remastered was made available on the Apple App Store. The Remastered Edition sold around 20,000 copies in its first month and expected to hit 70,000 sales in the first year and 100,000 lifetime sales.