Evolution Studios

Evolution Studios Ltd. is a British video game developer. The company was founded in 1999 by Martin Kenwright and Ian Hetherington, following the purchase of DID's publisher Ocean Software by Infogrames. Kenwright left DID with six members of staff to form Evolution Studios. Then based in Frodsham, Cheshire, it developed a racing demo on PC, depicting multiple rally cars racing on a circuit with cockpit views, which was subsequently picked up by Sony as it was interested in a PlayStation 2 game based on the World Rally Championship licence. Evolution is now headquartered in Runcorn, Cheshire. Both Evolution and their satellite studio, Bigbig Studios, in Warwickshire were acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in September 2007. At this point, Kenwright and Hetherington left the company, with its co-founder Mick Hocking taking over, running Evolution, Bigbig and SCE Studio Liverpool as Group Studio Director. Hocking was subsequently promoted to Vice President of the Studio Group in April 2011. The developer's latest game was Driveclub. It was scheduled as a PS4 launch title, although it was ultimately delayed, until October 2014.