Codemasters expanding Guildford studio

By Oli Welsh Published 16 February, 2010

Working on console FPS by creator of Black.

Codemasters has announced an "aggressive recruitment program" for its Guildford studio, and confirmed that the outfit is working on "an original action FPS".

The game is the brainchild of Stuart Black, co-creator and designer of EA Criterion's well-regarded 2006 shooter for PS2 and Xbox called, coincidentally, Black. It's for "leading console platforms".

According to Codemasters, the game entered full production 12 months ago and is an original IP using the company's impressive EGO engine, seen in racers like Race Driver: GRID and Colin McRae: DiRT as well as the recent Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.

Black is the game's creative director, and is joined by executive producer Tom Gillo from Sony London and senior producer Andrew Wilson from Black Rock. The development team is currently 80 strong.

The Guildford studio opened in 2007 and is run by Adrian Bolton, also from EA Criterion, and has a remit to develop original action games. There are design, programming and art jobs available and Codemasters hopes to start building up a second team and get another game in production. More info at the company's careers site.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (39) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • spongebob #1 2 years ago

    Hopefully it's something similar to Black. Fantastic game, that.

  • Sulphur #2 2 years ago

    'It's for "leading console platforms". '

    So they're targeting the Wii and the DS, then.

  • Murton #3 2 years ago

    Something similar, something different, if it's made to the same standard as Black I'll be happy.

  • cianchristopher #4 2 years ago

    The EGO engine is stunning to look at in Race Driver GRID and DiRT 2 - but absolutely not in Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising...

    I wonder if it translates well to the FPS genre at all...

    Then again, Black used Renderware - which powered all the Burnout games. So, maybe OF: DR just suffered from other issues...

  • kangarootoo #5 2 years ago

    @cianchristopher

    Renderware is one of those packages that, although it was presented and sold as a middleware solution for whatever game a 3rd party game might want to make, was heavily tweaked and customised by Criterion for whatever internal purpose it was needed.

    The version of the Renderware engine on which Black was built is relatively different from the version Burnout utilised. I expect the EGO engine will get similar treatment (even if perhaps it didn't get quite enough customisation for the needs of OpF:DR).

  • bluem4gic #6 2 years ago

    Black = Cack

    One of the most overrated FPS games I have ever played. So many people referred to it to me as the definitive shooter to have. After purchasing it I was really disappointed. It is still in my collection. However I will never put it in my Xbox or 360 again

    Lets hope that the sequel "White" will actually decent this time

    By the way before I get flamed. I would like to add I finished the game. I had to otherwise my money would of gone down the drain!

    Blurring of the background while reloading a weapon does not do it for me!
    Edited by 1 at 16/02/10 @ 16:39

  • Syrette #7 2 years ago

    Wahey, another FPS.

    Not enough of them in today's market if you ask me.

  • kangarootoo #8 2 years ago

    "Blurring of the background while reloading a weapon does not do it for me!"

    Amen to that.

    I also thought Black was rather over-rated. Beautiful visuals, but some core issues.

    Enemy damage was one area that needed work. Headshots kill, but too many body shots were needed to drop an enemy. I realise the standard response will be "get better at headshots", but this is a game that is asking me to spray bullets about to witness the amazing particle effects. I don't want to hose an enemy with rapid fire, John Woo style, to then find him still standing there when the dust settles. It just kills the moment. Max Payne knew what it was up to in that respect.

    The story also, christ I don't really even know how to begin critisising it. It was a mix of baffling nonsense and just nonsense.

    I played through a fair bit of it, and it wasn't a bad experience overall, but its not really an FPS benchmark for anything other than visuals. I can't think of a single other aspect of FPS game design that doesn't have a better reference point in another game.

    For a first attempt by a company with no FPS experience it was good work, but our view if the final result should not be blinded by a sense of charity.
    Edited by 1 at 16/02/10 @ 16:49

  • Gecks #9 2 years ago

    i will stand up as one of those people "overrating" black :) i still think it is immeasurably better than other similar games like MW1/2 (multiplayer notwithstanding); the combat was just so solid and refined that i didn't care that i was fighting the same 3 enemy types over and over again.

    and anyone who doesn't agree that black is excellent is clearly a racist :)
    Edited by 1 at 17/02/10 @ 08:00

  • kangarootoo #10 2 years ago

    @Gecks

    "the combat was just so solid and refined"

    Please, lets discuss. Pros and cons. It has been some time since I played it, so my memory is a factor here, but I really can't remember what parts of it I was genuinely impressed with (other than the gfx, and maybe the audio).

  • metalangel #11 2 years ago

    Codebastards making another game? No doubt it will be full of loads of irritating design decisions that are blatantly obvious to you and totally spoil any potential fun but somehow totally escaped the developers and testers.

  • Murton #12 2 years ago

    Weapons were pretty decent and other than the fact that the enemies often soaked up entire magazines before dying it was fairly realistic. But the combat certainly wasn't anything revolutionary.

    For me the biggest selling point of Black would have to be environments, not only did they look great but they were properly built. The one thing I never liked about Halo (first one, not played the others in SP) is way the game would send me down a corridor to complete and objective and then have me leave the way I came through another wave enemies, by the same token I don't want a huge expanse of open clusterfuck as delivered en masse by the Call of Duty franchise, Black's combat environments just seemed to strike the right balance, open but controlled.

  • Murton #13 2 years ago

    Codebastards making another game? No doubt it will be full of loads of irritating design decisions that are blatantly obvious to you and totally spoil any potential fun but somehow totally escaped the developers and testers.

    Care to elaborate?

  • Dave797 #14 2 years ago

    Will it include an open world setting designed to test your military tactics against clever AI?

    Unlocked by DLC of course...........

  • Skurmedel #15 2 years ago

    "IP" "Franchise", two words I would love to see wiped from the face of the earth.

  • SMOM #16 2 years ago

    If it's a sequel to Black then i'm sold.

  • octavedoctor #17 2 years ago

    Right... how many of you lot are from Criterion and Codies then? Must be some of you, it's all getting very bitter! :D

    About as bitter as this 85% coco content chocolate I just ate.... my tummy feels funny.

    Black is a game that I keep meaning to get around to playing....

  • ChocNut #18 2 years ago

    Why are all the comments so nasty? Didn't your mother ever tell you if you've nothing good to say then quit yer bitchin?

    Black was a solid shooter.

  • smelly #19 2 years ago

    ooooh.. interesting indeed!

  • smelly #20 2 years ago

    >Wahey, another FPS.

    Normally i'd say the same thing - but i liked black

  • green_nifta #21 2 years ago

    Chill out Stafford :)

  • Collymilad #22 2 years ago

    ""IP" "Franchise", two words I would love to see wiped from the face of the earth. "

    Yeah because it would be so easy for every game to be a completely new idea.. :|

    I don't get the idea against sequels. If you played a game for 20 hours and completed it, did your enjoyment of that game just suddenly and magically end at that point? Doubt it. Most people are quite happy to play another 20 hours of a more refined, new iteration of a similiar game (which is what a sequel usually is)

    What's important is that new ideas continue, that doesn't mean IP's and franchises have to die - they can co-exist you know.
    Edited by 2 at 16/02/10 @ 21:26

  • sarcasmoidosis #23 2 years ago

    "an original action FPS"

    I'd really like to see that. But I doubt they'll make anything other than a clone of Gears, Halo or CoD. Maybe it'll be less brown than Flashpoint, at least.

  • metalangel #24 2 years ago

    @Murton:

    TOCA Touring Cars 2: You had to get 15 points at EACH race meeting, or your team sacked you. Even if you had an insurmountable lead in both the drivers and teams standings for the current championship. Because, as we all know, if Lewis Hamilton crashes in one race, Mercedes fire him. So stupid, a cheat was added to disable this.

    Colin McRae Rally 2: As above, you had to place at least fifth in every stage before you were allowed to proceed.

    Operation Flashpoint Red Hammer (Codemasters developed this, not Bohemia Interactive): You're racing to reach rescue boats before the NATO forces catch up with you. And I did. I was standing in the water, next to the boat, actually touching it. But could I get in? Nope. The 'get in boat' command wouldn't come up, because, for the sake of the ridiculous story, you had to be left behind. So I stood there for about three minutes waiting for the 'oh no, we're too late, we've been left behind!' cutscene to be triggered. Later, you fight a hellish mission to steal a helicopter to make another bid for freedom. I completely demolished the airbase, every building flattened, every enemy soldier dead. I get in the helicopter... and another cutscene starts. A NATO soldier appears, who couldn't have possibly survived the carnage (and is standing out in the open!) and pulls out a Stinger and shoots you down. Fucking ridiculous.

    No Fear Downhill Mountainbiking: The developers had clearly never ridden a bicycle before. You hit a wall. On a real bike, what do you do? Plant your feet, lift the handlebars up to put the front wheel back down facing in the right direction, and continue. In the game? BACK LABOURIOUSLY UP like you're putting an oil tanker into dock. Ten seconds later, you are far enough from the wall that you can then turn (again really slowly) and get going down the track again. Your opponent is miles ahead by now.

    Micro Machines (Game Gear): As you progress through the career mode, eventually all the AI cars have a higher top speed than you. And the cars all accelerate to their top speed in maybe two seconds. Any gains you might make with good corners is lost as the AI effortlessly overtakes you on each straightaway.

    Turning Point Fall of Liberty: Melee attacks that only work if you're in exactly the right position, and are just canned animations. Guns that are so unwieldy it's like trying to aim a 30 foot long ladder.

    TOCA Race Driver: Wow, a racing game with proper damage real world tracks! Way better than Gran Turismo! Want to play? Sure! Oh. Everything's locked until I play hours and hours of the shitty career mode with the unlikeable protagonist. Never mind, put Gran Turismo back in.

    Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising: So, after we skanked up the expansion packs, let's try our hand at making the entire game. Hmmm. I know! Let's painstakingly model dozens of vehicles and weapons - and then never let the player use half of them! In fact, let's make it so the player is an infantryman for the entire game, looking enviously at the helicopters and tanks rolling past! And better yet - let's make it so the AI squad blocks his shots, medics refuse to come to his aid when he's dying and that there's a completely arbitrary time limit on nearly every mission! Hey, since we're cocking up spectacularly, how about rendering a huge island environment - that the player will never get to explore! And say that they can in every interview AND on the back of the box! Even though it's not true! And with this vast amount of content, let's only include a tiny handful of missions, no randomly generated skirmish mode, no map editor (that Forge thing in Halo looks really tricky, I don't think we could make a console do THAT!) and just DLC the thing to death!

    FUEL: Wow, we've made it into the record books for the biggest game environment ever! And 99% of it is COMPLETELY UTTERLY EMPTY. Never mind, enjoy the racing. With waypoints hidden by the undergrowth.

    You're In The Movies: Completely, totally broken.

    Boomerang Kid: A platform game - where all but the smallest drop kills you. Mario didn't have to put up with this shit.

  • Ziggy_badMonkey #25 2 years ago

    Thing is Stuart Black was not the creator of Black.
    Codemasters are using that to get cheap press.
    He was a Senior Designer on the team of designers (4 deisgners) Craig Sullivan led the design team and Alex Ward directed.
    Don't have much faith in codies after OPF2.
    Black is a EA IP and codies employing a guy who worked on it does not make it the spiritual successor no matter what spin they put on it !

  • BiscuitBase #26 2 years ago

    Ziggy_badMonkey is speaking strong and accurate truth. Although there were more like 6 designers by the end.
    Edited by 1 at 17/02/10 @ 00:17

  • Mono_X #27 2 years ago

    Good to see that someone at least is trying to create jobs in the industry.

    And yes, it's a shame that there are no testing positions! :/

  • rodpad #28 2 years ago

    Big up the Guildford. Brap.

  • orpheus #29 2 years ago

    Codies have caused a massive community backlash today by dropping support for Operation Flashpoint only four months after release:

    [link url=http://communit y.codemasters.com/forum/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising-g ame-consoles-1312/407319-16-02-confirmation-no-further-patch es-additional-dlc.html
    ]http://co mmunity.codemasters.com/forum/o...[/link]

    Loads of pre & post release promises of multiple dlc broken. lots of unhappy people. never buying codes ever, ever, ever again.

    PS Eurogamer you can thank me later for the tip ;)

  • Nodebug #30 2 years ago

    Holy shit, thats some talent working on the game, all from studios that have made incredibly polished and fun games. Hopefully Codemasters give them some room to breath and make something special.

  • swisstony #31 2 years ago

    Craig led, Stuart was his second in command, Alex was burning out with Burnout Revenge but kept his oar in, however he and Craig were principally involved in the origin of Black, which was in the womb for most ofthe time Burnout 3 being worked on. This worked well because the vision for what Black was going to be was very well defined when a production team started on it. We were always very clear on what was important to focus our efforts in. I think this told in the quality of the product. 'Tommy and Mikey' were brought in to help with level design midway through production ( my memory fails) so there were principally 4 designers. However, there were some tremendous and creative artists and programmers who were involved in the design soup regarding making the environments, AI and so on deliver the final, compelling experience.

    A number of those guys are now at Codies, and I know they'll do a great job.

    edit - memory does fail me, there was at least one other designer during production..
    Edited by 1 at 17/02/10 @ 15:56

  • octavedoctor #32 2 years ago

    update: I had to throw the chocolate in the bin after.... too strong! Sorry chocolate lovers...


  • Flabio #33 2 years ago

    You're in the Movies was Zoe Mode wasn't it? Nowt to do with Codies.

  • SeanBeansGravyBoat #34 2 years ago

    LOL Boomerang Kid.

    Metalangel, you either scoured the internet to find the most obscure Codemasters release EVER to make yourself look clever OR you really need to learn to just relax a bit. Harbouring such anger toward a NES game from the early 90's that had a massively limited release just can't be good for you.

  • Gecks #35 2 years ago

    @kangarootoo
    well, we're moving into areas of 'control' and 'feel' that i'm going to struggle to quantify, but i just think that black got the fundamentals so right that the several obvious flaws didn't bother me at all. it was sort of like goldeneye and counterstrike in the way the shots seemed to 'connect' and the guns all had their own unique feel. i'll bring up modern warfare 1 & 2 as games that conversely seems to get almost everything right BUT the combat - they just don't feel like i'm firing a gun and a bullet is coming out of that gun and that bullet is hitting a guy in the face, like black did. i don't know. i think black has the best combat engine of any FPS, there.

    i'm sure i've mentioned it in another thread but the sound-design in black is still head-and-shoulders above similar titles. it deserves more praise than the graphics (which were of course still very good).

  • Murton #36 2 years ago

    Metalangel, you either scoured the internet to find the most obscure Codemasters release EVER to make yourself look clever OR you really need to learn to just relax a bit..

    I'd be inclined to agree. Also half of the games listed were merely published by Codemasters, not developed by them so you can't hardly place blame with them if the game is poor. So we'll ignore those for now.

    TOCA 2 Colin McRae 2 and Micro Machines should also probably be struck from his list as forgiven as those very flaws he discusses were "fixed" in later instalments of their respective series if I remember correctly. So that leaves him with, the Flashpoint Expansion and sequel. The expansion issue wasis a "player ahead/outside of plot" problem which is often very hard to fix in a way that doesn't bring on more criticisms, an invisible wall or suddenly having the boat leave with three minutes on the clock would have fixed Metalangels problem, but they in themselves are new gameplay problems that he would likely have ranted about also. Dragon Rising on the hand, just wasn't as good as it perhaps should have been, even if we gloss over the bugs and other issues, it just failed to meet expectations, perhaps if it was named anything other than Operation Flashpoint it would have been different.

  • OllyJ #37 2 years ago

    I'm fairly certain, that Codies didn't develop Red Hammer, if anything was done it would have been English speech recording.

    Can't be a 100% sure but it's not something I remember happening.

  • green_nifta #38 2 years ago

    Actually Olly, it was the guys in Codies QA who put all the missions for Red Hammer together. Any code and art updates were done by Bohemia though I believe.

  • OllyJ #39 2 years ago

    there we are then, thanks for clearing that up! :D