Officials from British developer Kuju have announced that the company has rebranded its Sheffield, England studio with the new name Chemistry – at the same time giving the studio more autonomy as it specializes in games created using Epic’s Unreal Engine.
Kuju’s studio in Brighton, England, known for casual friendly games such as
EyeToy: Play 3 and
SingStar Legends, was
rebranded as Zoe Mode in March of this year. The Sheffield studio was founded in 2002 and has worked on a number of soccer franchises for Codemasters, including the
LMA Manager series, the
Club Football action titles and
Sensible Soccer 2006.
Most recently the studio has worked on
Pilot Academy on PSP for Rising Star and quiz show franchise
Buzz! for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. The studio’s current project is
To End All Wars for Ghostlight – a currently undetailed title on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The studio has recently moved to new offices in the central of Sheffield and is seeking to expand its current staff level of thirty people.
Said studio head Simeon Pashley, "We've decided to specialise in Unreal Engine as it's clearly an awesome next gen toolset that frees our staff to focus on bringing their creative talents to bear without worrying about the low-level nuts and bolts. It's also perfect for our future plans as it allows us to look forward without worrying about technology stability."
Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games commented: "Chemistry impressed us earlier this year with a very interesting UE3 based prototype and we're equally impressed with their business strategy as well. By specializing in Unreal Engine 3 they're going to get continuously more proficient at using it and develop increasingly polished games over time.”
