Traveller's Tales

Traveller's Tales

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	1989; 36 years ago (1989)
Founders	Jon Burton Andy Ingram
Headquarters	Knutsford , England
Products	Toy Story (1995–2001) Sonic the Hedgehog (1996–97) Crash Bandicoot (2001–04) Lego (2005–2022) Transformers: The Game (2007)
Parent	TT Games (2005–present)

Traveller's Tales is a British video game developer and a subsidiary of TT Games. Traveller's Tales was founded in 1989 by Jon Burton and Andy Ingram. Initially a small company focused on its own content, it grew in profile through developing games with larger companies such as Sega and Disney Interactive Studios. In 2004, development on Lego Star Wars: The Video Game started with Giant Interactive Entertainment, the exclusive rights holder to Lego video games. Traveller's Tales bought the company in 2005, and the two merged to create TT Games, with Traveller's Tales becoming the new company's development arm.^[1][2]

History

Founding and work with Sega and Disney (1989–2007)

Traveller's Tales started developing games with Psygnosis, which were most notable for creating 3D effects. Their first game was Leander, also known as The Legend of Galahad.^[3] With Psygnosis they developed a video game adaption of Bram Stoker's Dracula, as well as other original productions like Puggsy and Rascal. Thanks to an agreement between Psygnosis, Sony Imagesoft and Disney Interactive Studios, Traveller's Tales could produce several games based on Disney's properties, such as the Mickey Mouse game Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse and other games based on Pixar films like Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue and Finding Nemo (the latter two thanks to agreements with Activision and THQ).^{[citation needed]}

Traveller's Tales was best known in the 1990s and early 2000s for their second-party collaboration with Sega to develop games based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, resulting in Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R, which were produced in close effort with Sega's Sonic Team. Both games were regarded as technical achievements in the Mega Drive (Sonic 3D Blast) and the Sega Saturn (Sonic R), adding to the high-tech development status they already had with games like Puggsy, Mickey Mania and Toy Story. They were also responsible for Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex and Crash Twinsanity, under the Vivendi label.^{[citation needed]}

They developed Lego Star Wars: The Video Game as well as its follow-ups. Outside of the Lego games, their work includes the franchise Crash Bandicoot, The Chronicles of Narnia, Super Monkey Ball Adventure, and World Rally Championship and F1 Grand Prix for the PlayStation Portable.^{[citation needed]}

Warner Bros. acquisition and Lego titles (2007–present)

The company was purchased by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment at the end of 8 November 2007,^[4] but continued to operate independently. Following the release of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), Traveller's Tales would work exclusively on Lego titles – though other TT subsidiaries such as TT Fusion continued to use other intellectual property until the early 2010s. While some of the early Lego titles would be published by LucasArts, from 2011 Warner would also act as the studio's exclusive publisher.^[5]

In 2015, Traveller's Tales entered the toys-to-life business with Lego Dimensions, which used a toy pad to enter physical Lego minifigures and Lego models into the game, as well as interact with gameplay. The game included existing Lego themes like DC Comics, The Lego Movie and The Lord of the Rings, as well as new properties such as Portal 2 and Wizard of Oz. The game was discontinued in October 2017.^[6]

Traveller's Tales has won two BAFTAs, one for Gameplay with Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, and one for Children's Videogame of the Year for Lego Batman: The Videogame.^[7][8]

On 20 January 2022, a report published by Polygon detailed the amount of crunch that occurred at the studio during the development of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, including dozens inside the company being at odds with management, due to expressing frustration over tight development schedules, the company's crunch culture, and outdated development tools. In addition, the use of NTT (a new in-house engine that was being developed to replace Traveller's Tales' previous engine in attempt to avoid paying royalties for using a third-party engine like Unreal Engine or Unity) was controversial within the company, as many employees had been pushing to instead use Unreal Engine. NTT turned out to be difficult to use, with some animations taking hours more to produce than they would on the old engine. As a result, The Skywalker Saga would end up being the only game developed by Traveller's Tales to use NTT, with the company deciding to use Unreal Engine going forward for their future projects.^[9]

Games developed

Year	Title	Publisher(s)	Platforms
1991	Leander	Psygnosis/Electronic Arts (Sega Genesis)	Amiga, Atari ST, Sega Genesis
1993	Bram Stoker's Dracula	Sony Imagesoft	SNES, Sega Genesis
	Puggsy	Psygnosis	Amiga, Sega Genesis, Sega CD
1994	Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse	Sony Imagesoft/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe	SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, PlayStation
1995	Toy Story	Disney Interactive	Sega Genesis, SNES, Windows
1996	Sonic 3D Blast	Sega	Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn
1997	Sonic R		Sega Saturn, Windows
1998	Rascal	Psygnosis	PlayStation
	A Bug's Life	Activision	PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Windows
1999	Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue	Activision	PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Windows, Mac
2000	Muppet RaceMania	Midway Games/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe	PlayStation
	Buzz Lightyear of Star Command	Activision	PlayStation, Dreamcast, Windows, Game Boy Color
2001	Toy Story Racer		PlayStation
	Weakest Link		PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Windows
	Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex	Vivendi Universal Games	PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube
2002	Haven: Call of the King	Midway Games	PlayStation 2
2003	Finding Nemo	THQ	PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube
2004	Crash Twinsanity	Vivendi Universal Games	PlayStation 2, Xbox
2005	Lego Star Wars: The Video Game	Eidos Interactive/Giant Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, Windows) Feral Interactive (OS X)	PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, Windows, OS X
	F1 Grand Prix	Sony Computer Entertainment	PlayStation Portable
	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	Buena Vista Games	PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, Windows
	World Rally Championship	Sony Computer Entertainment	PlayStation Portable
2006	Super Monkey Ball Adventure	Sega	PlayStation 2, Gamecube, PlayStation Portable
	Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy	LucasArts (PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, Windows) Feral Interactive (OS X)	PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube, Windows, OS X
	Bionicle Heroes	Eidos Interactive	PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Gamecube, Windows, Wii
2007	Transformers: The Game	Activision	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii, PlayStation 2
	Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga	LucasArts (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii) Feral Interactive (OS X) Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (iOS, Android)	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, OS X, Wii, iOS, Android
2008	Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures	LucasArts (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable) Feral Interactive (OS X)	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, OS X, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable
	Lego Batman: The Videogame	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable) Feral Interactive (OS X)	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable
	The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian	Disney Interactive Studios	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS
2009	Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues	LucasArts	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii
2010	Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii) Feral Interactive (OS X)	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, OS X, Wii
2011	Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars	LucasArts	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii
	Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game	Disney Interactive Studios	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii
	Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii
2012	Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes		PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Windows, Wii
	Lego The Lord of the Rings		PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii
2013	Lego Marvel Super Heroes		PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows
2014	Lego The Hobbit		PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows
	Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham		PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows
2015	Lego Dimensions		PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
2016	Lego Marvel's Avengers		PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows
2017	Lego Worlds		PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows
	Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2		PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows
2018	Lego DC Super-Villains		PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows
2019	The Lego Movie 2 Videogame[10]		PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows
2022	Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga		PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows

References

1. Wallis, Alistair (9 November 2006). "Playing Catch Up: Traveller's Tales' Jon Burton". Gamasutra. UBM TechWeb. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
2. Feddy, Kevin (18 January 2013). "The £100m 'geek'". Manchester Evening News. M.E.N Media. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
3. "Travellers Tales: Sonic R Programmer Speaks!". Sega Saturn Magazine. No. 24. Emap International Limited. October 1997. p. 25. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
4. Martin, Matt (8 November 2007). "Warner Bros. swoops for Traveller's Tales". GamesIndustry.biz. Gamer Network. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
5. "Games – TT Games".
6. "'Lego Dimensions' Officially Cancelled". Forbes.
7. "LEGO Batman: The Videogame". gamesindustry.biz. 1 December 2008. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
8. "GRAW grabs BAFTA top award". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. 6 October 2006. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
9. Yarwood, Jack (20 January 2022). "Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has led to extensive crunch at TT Games". Polygon. Archived from the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
10. Santangelo, Nick (27 November 2018). "The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame Announced for 2019". IGN. Retrieved 27 November 2018.

External links

• Official website