History
Evolution Studios was founded in 1999 by Martin Kenwright (formerly of Digital Image Design) and Ian Hetherington (formerly of Psygnosis, now Sony Computer Entertainment Europe ).
After developing a PC based racing game demo to show to publishers, the company was hired by Sony to develop World Rally Championship games for the PlayStation 2.
When the PlayStation 3 was announced, the company decided to use the time to break away from the WRC license and develop their own franchise. This took the shape of MotorStorm, which was developed and released as a launch title for the PlayStation 3.
Shortly after the release of MotorStorm, Sony Computer Entertainment acquired both Evolution Studios and their satellite company Bigbig Studios. After the buy-out Kenwright and Hetherington both left the studio, allowing fellow co-founder Mick Hockering to take over as Group Studio Director at Evolution, Bigbig and Sony Liverpool.
After finishing Driveclub for the PlayStation 4 the studio was later shut down by Sony during the spring of 2016. Following the shutdown most of the employees of Evolution were hired by Codemasters and are now part of the newly created third Codemasters studio called Codemasters Evolution based in Runcorn.
Location
Originally the company was based in Frodsham, Cheshire in the United Kingdom, but is currently based in Runcorn.
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