Insomniac Games

Insomniac Games is a video game developer. They created Disruptor, the first three Spyro the Dragon games, the Ratchet & Clank series, the Resistance series, Outernauts, Fuse, and Sunset Overdrive.

History

Beginning

Insomniac Games was founded in the year 1994 and developed the first-person shooter Disruptor for the Playstation, which was released in 1996. Soon afterward, Insomniac began developing games for Sony Computer Entertainment.

Spyro the Dragon

In the year 1998, Insomniac Games developed and released their next game, Spyro the Dragon (video game) featuring a purple dragon named Spyro. The game was wildly popular in the year of its release and, in 1999, received a sequel, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!. The game was now officially a series. The third video game of the Spyro series, Spyro: Year of the Dragon was released in 2000 and was the last Spyro game developed by Insomniac. After Spyro, they next moved on to the Playstation 2 and began development on a new game

Ratchet & Clank

In 2002, Insomniac released Ratchet & Clank, which was a smash hit both critically and commercially. It featured a Lombax named Ratchet and a robot named Clank who defend their galaxy from those who wish to dominate it. Several sequels followed on the PS2, including Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando in 2003, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal in 2004, and Ratchet: Deadlocked in 2005.

In the year 2007, Ratchet and Clank made their debut on Playstation 3 with Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction, which was the first installment in the "Future trilogy." Later, the second and third parts of the trilogy were released as Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty in 2008, and Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time in 2009.

Insomniac Games also developed two spin-off games around this time, which were Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One in 2011 and Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault in 2012.

Resistance

In addition to the Ratchet & Clank Future trilogy, Insomniac also developed the Resistance series. It began with Resistance: Fall of Man in 2006, which was a success and led to two more Insomniac-made games in the form of Resistance 2 in 2008, and Resistance 3 in 2011.

The series takes place in an alternate history around the year 1950, in which an alien civilization known as the Chimera have invaded and conquered Earth, expanding their armies by capturing humans and transforming them into monster-like supersoldiers to fight for them. The player takes the role of one of the remaining human armed forces as they fight against the Chimera invasion (Sergeant/Lieutenant Nathan Hale in Resistance 1 and 2, and Private Joseph Capelli in Resistance 3).

Outernauts

In 2012, Insomniac released Outernauts for Facebook. It is a social role-playing game in which players must explore alien planets to capture and nurture creatures with which to do battle. Player actions are limited by "energy", an in-game resource that accumulates over time, but which can also be purchased with real-world currency.

Fuse

In 2013, Insomniac released Fuse, a four-player co-op action game (originally known as Overstrike). The game is set in the near future and follows a team of four misfit agents collectively known as Overstrike 9, whose mission is to stop the evil Raven Corporation from gaining an alien substance called Fuse. The members of Overstrike 9 are Dalton Brooks (voiced by Brian Bloom), a reformed and sarcastic mercenary, Naya Deveraux (voiced by Jennifer Hale), who worked for Raven with her dad, Isabelle "Izzy" Sinclair (voiced by Ali Hillis), a gifted, but rebellious young scientist, and Jacob Kimble (voiced by Khary Payton), a decorated detective with a bit of a temper.

Sunset Overdrive

During Microsoft's E3 2013 press event, Insomniac Games announced Sunset Overdrive, an open world shooter video game. The overall concept is described as such: a recent catastrophe in the player-character's city has killed or turned most of its people into mutants. The player has to "figure out how to deal with" the mutants. The game is set in the near future.

Games

• Disruptor (PS, 1996)
• Spyro the Dragon series
  • Spyro the Dragon (PS, 1998)
  • Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! (PS, 1999)
  • Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon (PS, 2000)
• Ratchet & Clank series
  • Ratchet & Clank (PS2, 2002)
  • Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PS2, 2003)
  • Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2, 2004)
  • Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2, 2005)
  • Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3, 2007)
  • Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (PS3, 2008)
  • Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3, 2009)
  • Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One (PS3, 2011)
  • Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault (PS3, 2012)
  • Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus (PS3, 2013)
• Resistance series
  • Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3, 2006)
  • Resistance 2 (PS3, 2008)
  • Resistance 3 (PS3, 2011)
• Outernauts (Facebook, 2012)
• Fuse (PS3/Xbox 360, 2013)
• Sunset Overdrive (Xbox One, TBA)

Trivia

• Although Insomniac Games developed the first three Spyro games, they never owned the rights to Spyro as most fans speculated and claimed. Universal Interactive did in fact own the rights to the Spyro franchise while Insomniac developed and created the characters, gameplay, and the worlds in Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. After insomniac moved on, Universal contracted with indie developers Check Six Games and Equinox Games to develop the 4th Spyro game, which was called Spyro: Enter The Dragonfly. Soon after this game, Universal and Vivendi Games merged their companies, and Spyro A Heros Tail was released. After this, while Universal-Vivendi still owned full rights, Sierra Entertainment went on to Publish the entire Legend trilogy for all countries other than Australia, in which Universal-Vivendi published in that country. After the trilogy was concluded, Activision bought Vivendi-Universal and obtained all rights to several of their franchises, including both the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro The Dragon franchises. After this, Activision contracted with Toys 4 Bob to reboot the spyro series, and ended up creating Skylanders.

• The CEO of Insomniac Games, Ted Price, reveals that he and his kids like Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, and he was disheartened by the follow-ups of the games he and his team had made when they walked away from the Spyro franchise years ago. He mentions that he is really happy for the Spyro franchise in the current universe of Skylanders. According to Ted, to see the Spyro series back with a fairly innovative concept, is really rewarding for the team who worked on the first three Spyro games.