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Whether they're still in the business or sadly defunct. Still going strong or have seen better days, what are the top 5 studios that always made you pumped when they announced a new game that you already knew was going to be an absolute banger???
In no particular, my 5 favorite game companies are:
I'm actually thinking Blizzard may have been my favorite game company ever when they were at their peak. Unfortunately, times have changed.....but when Blizzard was the top of their "game" it was hard to find a better developer. Even today, their cinematics are still the best in the business. From the late 90s in my childhood to the early 2010s, I lived and breathed Blizzard and I thought the party would never stop. And, the best physical copies in gaming!
Diablo was a terrifying introduction to RPGs and taught me the concept of "looter" games that would drive to another studio in my list. StarCraft having 3 very distinctive factions that had a space western vibe to it with clear Warhammer 40k influence and a flawless multiplayer experience. Warcraft as an RTS, especially Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos/The Frozen Throne, to this day is peak Warcraft lore and high fantasy setting/gameplay. And World of Warcraft needs no introduction. Warcraft has to be one of the richest game worlds ever crafted. I also really enjoyed Overwatch when it first launched, but I'm not as fond of that franchise.
I'm a bigger fan of Blizzard's strategy games, but they taught me that strategy games can have amazing storytelling and writing. Whether it was their cinematics, multiplayer experiences, storytelling, or gameplay, Blizzard could do no wrong. They really were a special company at their height. For me, the end of the Blizzard I grew up loving was after the expansion Legacy of the Void released for StarCraft 2, but, the writing had already been on the wall for several years at that point.
This I will forever damn Microsoft for in their mismanagement of Ensemble Studios. Age of Empires is among the top 5 of my personal favorite franchises. My dad is who introduced me to this franchise. I played a ton of Age 2 and especially Age of Mythology with him (probably my favorite in the series and stoked for the remake) and I loved the new direction the franchise went with Age 3 which to me felt like a breath of fresh air in the RTS genre. Which my dad and I played a ton of together as well. I love history and each AoE game covering a new aspect of human history always fascinated me, and not to mention, an unforgettable theme song.
Ensemble could've been Microsoft's biggest studio for a long time by now, but Don Mattrick fucked everything up because he wanted a massive bonus if Xbox reached certain revenue and profit goals and Ensemble was an expensive studio to maintain (which Don never met those goals, so this studios closure was for nothing) Ensemble from 2004-2007 was working on a Halo MMO codenamed Titan to compete with World of Warcraft. I was already hooked on WoW, so this was a matchmade in heaven. There's a lot of images of the world and what the gameplay looked like online. Ensemble had most of the online infrastructure setup and they were set to move to a massive new state of the art headquarters to grow even further but.....Don.....instead of moving to a new HQ and launching a huge Halo MMO, Don shut the studio down for no good reason other than an attempt at personal financial gain.
But.....Ensemble still had one last homerun up their sleeves before shutting down with Halo Wars. Halo turning into an RTS was a genius move and was a fantastic game, introducing new characters to the Halo universe and showed that Ensemble never lost their magical touch. I'm happy to see Age of Empires continuing to thrive to this day.
I most likely don't need to say much 
Donkey Kong Country is my favorite franchise in gaming, so many timeless unforgettable gaming memories for decades of my life to this day. Nintendo will forever be a gaming giant and I will always buy their consoles. Warmed my heart seeing my daughters first gaming experience be the original Super Mario Bros on the Switch, and I can't wait to show her more.
My first introduction to Bungie was actually with Myth 2: Soulblighter. Another franchise my dad introduced me to. Later on is when I played the original game. There's so much potential with Myth in the fantasy genre that I hope Bungie one day returns to, but seeing how Bungie is playing out these days, that's unlikely. Of course though, I became a mega fan when Halo CE released. That game is what introduced me to LAN parties. Going to my classmates house on the weekends with 4 Xbox's hooked up playing for who knows how many hours! Great summer vacations. Then Halo 2 taking the LAN experience online was unbelievable and was my first midnight game launch. Culminating in Halo 3 that had the best of both worlds and being able to add customizable game modes with Forge. The original Halo trilogy were some special times.
I still continued with Bungie when Destiny released. The looting aspect of Diablo and the MMO-like features that I loved in World of Warcraft like raids, Destiny has always been a franchise with such insane potential that on several occasions really nailed the concept of the franchise like The Taken King and Forsaken, but most times, failed to live up the hype. Gameplay, loot, and the endgame content like raids/dungeons were always high points and hooked me for a long time.
I'm most likely completely done with Bungie now and going forward, but I still have so many timeless memories from their games that will last a lifetime.
id Software I always felt terrible for playing their games because of how much I knew my parents hated them but the Doom games and Quake, always gave me a huge rush of excitement. I just thought they were so insanely cool, but I could only play them at my cousins house since his parents didn't care, and I was hooked onto arena shooters. I played a lot of Unreal Tournament as well when Quake 3 released, but I always preferred Quake. And being born and raised in Dallas, I've been going to Quakecon annually for almost 20 years now. You feel part of a community with id and Quakecon, and with the back to back amazing releases of the Doom reboot, I feel id is back on top of their game! If any studio was going to bring back arena shooters, it would be id.
Please rate your top 5 and feel free to share your stories of how that admiration for them came to be.
Last edited by G2ThaUNiT - on 27 November 2023
I don't care what anyone says about Rareware nowadays, still one of my favorite companies out there and Sea of Thieves is some of their best work. Not only that, but a lot of their games under Xbox are some of the best, Nuts n Bolts was most certainly ahead of it's time, Viva Pinata games are some of the most fun and chilled moments I've had with a Rareware game, Kameo was an amazing game and lots of fun to play. The only game I will say that was meh, under Xbox, was Perfect Dark Zero.
