video game industry founded 18 august 1987 ; 29 years ago 1987 08 18 1 founder tim ansell headquarters horsham west sussex united kingdom key people tim ansell michael simpson al bickham products total war series owner sega sammy holdings number of employees 300 2 parent sega games co. ltd. 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 . an australian branch was operated from fortitude valley queensland sega studios australia . 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 the 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 . 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 three different total war projects and halo wars 2 . contents 1 history 1.1 founding 1.2 early total war titles 1.3 buyout and later games 2 games 3 references 4 external links history edit founding edit 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 . 3 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 . 4 the 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 . 4 with ea sports the 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 . 4 when it became clear that the company needed to expand further ansell employed michael simpson in 1996 as studio director . simpson a microchip designer turned video game designer later became the driving force for the creative design of the total war series . 5 early total war titles edit as a result of their success in sports titles by 1999 creative assembly had sufficient resources and backing from electronic arts to develop more high risk titles in other genres . the result of this was shogun total war the company s breakthrough title . a blend of real time tactics and turn based gameplay shogun total war was first announced in early 1999 . the game focused the sengoku period of japanese feudal history and upon its release in june 2000 it was met with critical acclaim . the game won multiple industry awards and became regarded as one of the benchmark strategy video games . 6 7 inhouse composer jeff van dyck won both a bafta and an emma award for his work on the game s soundtrack . 6 in may 2001 the creative assembly announced the mongol invasion an expansion pack focusing on the earlier mongol invasions of japan . released in august 2001 the expansion pack also received a positive response . soon after creative assembly broke away from electronic arts instead using activision as a publisher and distributor . 4 in august 2001 the creative assembly announced a second total war video game this time set in the middle ages . medieval total war was of a larger scope than shogun total war spanning a larger time period and the entire of medieval europe . released in august 2002 the game was a greater success than shogun total war becoming the best selling video game in the uk for the first two weeks and the fourth best selling game in the us market in its first week . 8 as with shogun total war medieval total war won multiple industry awards and was named the top game of 2002 by pc gamer unseating valve software s half life . 9 the creative assembly itself was also awarded the european computer trade show pc game developer of the year award . 10 viking invasion an expansion pack focusing on the viking invasions of britain in the dark ages was released in may 2003 . a third total war title was announced in january 2003 . entitled rome total war the game featured an entirely new game engine to shogun total war and medieval total war and redesigned the approach to the series . set during the rise of the roman empire the game s code was used for two television shows the bbc s time commanders 11 and the history channel s decisive battles . 12 upon release in september 2004 the game was given near universal praise becoming one of the year s top ten best selling titles . 13 jeff van dyck was again nominated for a bafta award for the game s soundtrack . 14 buyout and later games edit despite speculation that activision might buy the creative assembly as the publisher had done with previous successful developers under its wing 15 the japanese company sega announced on 9 march 2005 that they had sealed an acquisition deal with the creative assembly 15 purchasing all issued shares in the company . 16 sega explained that the acquisition was to strengthen sega europe s presence in the european and north american video game markets . 17 all preceding titles in the total war series had been exclusively computer games . by july 2005 sega had acquired the publishing rights to rome total war from activision 18 and built on the brand strategy by releasing two expansion packs barbarian invasion in september 2005 and alexander in september 2006 . spartan total warrior was released in october 2005 on xbox playstation 2 and gamecube receiving a mixed reception from critics . 19 20 21 medieval ii total war the fourth title in the franchise was announced in january 2006 . 22 it was a remake of the earlier medieval total war using the new assets and technology behind rome total war . the game was released in november 2006 and although not as successful as rome total war 23 medieval ii total war was still a critical and commercial hit holding a place in the uk games charts in november 2006 24 and in the us charts until the end of january 2007 . 25 an expansion pack kingdoms was announced in march 2007 . the expansion received a positive reception from critics upon release in august 2007 . 26 at the games convention in leipzig germany in august 2007 the creative assembly simultaneously announced new titles . the first viking battle for asgard was another console exclusive title similar in style to spartan total warrior but focusing on norse mythology . 27 the game was released in march 2008 but only received an average reception from critics in the industry . 28 29 the second title was a fifth total war installment empire total war set in the early modern period of the 18th century and early 19th century . 30 as was the case with rome total war empire total war features a redesigned approach to the series and a new game engine . it was released in march 2009 receiving high praise from many within the industry 31 selling double the amount of units sold of medieval ii total war and rome total war . however numerous significant issues were pointed out by fans and critics after the release . though there were numerous patches not all of these were addressed by the abandonment of support for the game which caused many to question sega s influence on the creative assembly . 32 in july 2008 the creative assembly announced another title stormrise . unlike previous historically based games stormrise is a science fiction real time strategy game developed for both consoles and pc released in 2009 . 33 stormrise received negative and mediocre responses with criticisms focusing on broken pathfinding and the game s flawed control scheme designed with the intent to create an easy interface for consoles . 34 35 the australian branch of the creative assembly ported the first three sonic the hedgehog games and the sonic & knuckles lock on games to sonic classic collection . this compilation received overall positive reviews from aussie nintendo and official nintendo magazine but criticised some speed issues when playing rarely speeding up or slowing down and some graphical and sound glitches . reviewers also criticised the removal of multiplayer in the games previously available in earlier versions of the games . in 2010 the company released napoleon total war based on the exploits of napoleon bonaparte to generally favourable reviews that praised the tightly scripted elements of a smaller more focussed campaign than its globe spanning predecessor empire total war . 36 the company released total war shogun 2 in 2011 to universal acclaim . 37 the title is the first to make the brand total war the main title in an effort to increase brand awareness . 38 on 6 december 2012 public announcement of a partnership between games workshop and creative assembly was announced on creative assembly s website . also announced was the creation of a new warhammer fantasy battle game . 39 on 5 april 2013 it was announced that sega studios australia formerly known as the creative assembly australia will be shut down later in the year . 40 41 on 3 september 2013 the creative assembly released total war rome ii . the game uses an updated warscape engine and suffered from technical issues shortly after release which eventually led to creative assembly s creative director mike simpson apologising publicly to fans for the widespread technical issues . 42 in the ten months following release creative assembly released fourteen patches for the game solving most technical issues and balancing gameplay . 43 as of july 2014 the game currently stands at a rating of 76 100 on metacritic by critics and 4.1 10 by users . 44 creative assembly s most recent game is alien isolation a first person stealth horror game based on the first alien movie and featuring the voice talents of the original cast in a special dlc mission . 45 the game was released on 7 october 2014 for pc ps3 ps4 xbox 360 and xbox one . 46 the company has released the game total war warhammer which is set to be the first game in a trilogy . 47 currently they are developing the following games total war arena and total war battles kingdom which are free to play games set in the total war universe 48 49 and halo wars 2 for windows and xbox one with microsoft studios . 50 games edit title year platform blood money 1989 dos 51 52 baal 1989 dos 53 52 stunt car racer 1989 dos 54 52 infestation 1990 dos fm towns 55 56 52 stryx 1990 dos 57 52 shadow of the