¡Hola a todos y a todas!
I hope all of you are celebrating a great Hispanic Heritage Month, including the programming we are performing from Fandom’s Community Team.
A few weeks ago we started this observance presenting our programming for this year, driving the theme of Makers Series and featuring artists from worlds like comics, science fiction and animation. We recently launched our first editor story, coming from Fearless Diva, with more to come in the next few days.
At the same time, some of our amazing entertainment wikis have been preparing their own appreciation posts, shedding light on the people who have been creating the IPs we love but typically don’t get the spotlight they deserve. You can learn more through the following links:
In addition to the artists who have historically been creating their own works for TV, cinema or printed publications, we also want to honor an emerging industry that has become an important part of fan culture: video games. Games are a vital part of Fandom and our fan communities, and while some people think most of their developers come from the United States and Japan, the Hispanic developer studios have been creating their mark throughout these last years.
Now we’re highlighting 20 Hispanic video game developer studios that you probably weren't familiar with, but they have definitely been leading the industry with highly acclaimed, valued and successful titles we love. ¡A jugar!
- 1. ACE Team is a Chilean studio originally founded in 1998 by three brothers: Andres, Carlos and Edmundo Bordeu (you can guess how they formed its name). They started doing total conversions (mods that in some cases are completely changing the original game and doing a new one) of older games, starting with Batman Doom and ZanZan (for Doom II) or The Dark Conjunction for Quake III Arena. After their success, the brothers started to work for Wanako Games, but some years later they decided to legally run their studio and since 2009 they have been working on 10 titles, including the acclaimed series Rock of Ages.
- 2. Aeternum Game Studios is a recently-created Spanish studio founded by programmers with a large experience in multiple areas. In 2021 they released Aeterna Noctis, a Metroidvania work, and they’re currently developing both a prequel (Summum Aeterna) and a sequel (Aeterna Lucis).
- 3. Akaoni Studio is a Spanish developer and publisher founded in 2009. Alongside Animal Boxing, they developed and published Zombie Panic in Wonderland worldwide in 2010 after an initial release in Japan. This title was really successful, and was even included in the first rank for sales in the Asian country.
- 4. Blitworks is a Spanish studio, best known for their work with ports of titles like Sonic CD, Super Meat Boy, Spelunky, Don't Starve and more recently They Are Billions, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Gris, Gone Home, Streets of Rage 4, Starbound or even Baldur’s Gate 3, what made the studio being officially part of Larian Studios since 2021 with the name of Larian Barcelona.
- 5. Crema is a Spanish developer studio founded in 2009. Starting with mobile apps and games, they launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2018 for an indie game that would massively break into the industry in 2020: Temtem. The rest is history.
- 6. Deconstructeam is a Spanish indie studio founded in 2012. They are best known for the titles Gods Will Be Watching (2014) and The Red Strings Club (2018), both being published by the established indie publisher Devolver Digital.
- 7. Dreams Uncorporated is a Colombian studio founded around 2019. They became famous after the release of the successful game Cris Tales in 2021, and are currently developing a new title called Lunar Lander Beyond for Atari.
- 8. Dual Effect Games were, alongside Abstract Digital, the developers of Tormented Souls, published by PQube Games in 2021. More recently, this Chilean studio is developing its sequel Tormented Souls 2.
- 9. Fictiorama Studios is a Spanish video game developer, founded in 2012. Their style is focused on narrative storytelling. Debuting with Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today in 2015, 3 years later they created the successfully acclaimed title Do Not Feed the Monkeys (published by the indie Spanish publisher Badland Games), more recently followed by its sequel 2099 earlier this year.
- 10. Gameloft Barcelona is, as you can imagine, one of the subsidiary studios of the European company (now part of Vivendi), based in this Spanish city since 2006. They have published video games like Cosmic Colony, Despicable Me: Minion Rush or CSI: Slots, and more recently Asphalt 9: Legends and the famous recent release Disney Speedstorm.
- 11. HyperBeard Games is a Mexican company founded in 2014. Considered the largest mobile game developer and publisher from this country, they are the creators of KleptoCats, Chichens, Clawbert, Kiki's Vacation or Pocket Love alongside others. They also have subsidiaries like the Chilean studio Bow3 Games.
- 12. Ironhide Game Studio is an indie studio from Uruguay. Founded by three friends back in 2010, their third game was the successful Kingdom Rush, followed by ports and sequels of it and also other different titles, even tabletop adaptations of their established video game trilogy.
- 13. Lienzo is a Mexican studio founded in 2012. After its debut with Hunter's Legacy in 2017, they released Mulaka a year later and more recently Aztech Forgotten Gods.
- 14. MercurySteam is a Spanish developer founded in 2002. After working with 3 games, they became famous worldwide because Konami trusted them to develop Castlevania: Lords of Shadow in 2010 - including Hideo Kojima as one of the producers. Receiving a highly positive reception and commercial success, the company approved 2 more sequels. However, they didn’t have only a one-hit wonder: the next title was directly brought by Nintendo, creating new stories for the Metroid franchise with Samus Returns and Dread. At the same time, they developed and published Spacelords.
- 15. Nimble Giant Entertainment is an Argentinian developer founded in 2002. They created almost 20 games for these 2 decades, including Champions of Regnum and Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars. More recently, in 2020 they launched Quantum League, the same year they were acquired by Saber Interactive (actually being part of Embracer Group). During the last few years, they published Hellbound and they’re about to have Star Trek: Infinite published by Paradox Interactive in October.
- 16. Pyro Studios was one of the most beloved studios in the world. Founded in Spain in 1996, they were mainly known for the highly acclaimed series Commandos. In addition, they also developed Praetorians and Imperial Glory and more recently merged the studio to focus on mobile games.
- 17. SocialPoint is another well known developer of free-to-play mobile games and social network games. Many people have played at some point to Dragon City, Monster Legends, World Chef or Dragon Land, but they probably didn’t know they were created by this Spanish company that was even acquired by Take-Two Interactivei n 2017.
- 18. Sumersion Studio is a Chilean studio founded in 2011 and focused on video games and apps development, including services for other companies. They launched titles like Arkadianax, Salvagonia and other ones by request. More recently, they announced the development of 3 Days of Darkness, but unfortunately they didn’t release more updates since then.
- 19. Tequila Works is, despite its name, a Spanish company founded in 2009. They were able to develop their first game, Deadlight, in 2012 and with the support of Microsoft Studios. 5 years later, they published their own first title - Rime - with favorable reviews and being considered one of the best games of 2017. Alongside other titles, more recently they published Gylt, starting as one of the Stadia exclusives but later being released in other platforms.
- 20. The Game Kitchen is our last selected studio, and probably one of the most prolific in recent years. Founded in 2010, the Spanish indie developer got a warm welcoming to the industry with The Last Door in 2013. Nevertheless, the best was not yet to come. In 2019 they launched Blasphemous, which made them one of the industry leaders. But even better, they recently released its sequel in 2023, Blasphemous 2, and once again they nailed it.
Did you already know all of them? Are you surprised after knowing these studios are behind some of the video games you love the most? Do you recommend other Hispanic companies to include in the list? Let me know in the Comments section!
¡Hasta la vista!
This blog post is dedicated to the memory of CxnstellationPrize, who we would like to honor for their commitment to DEI.
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