Creation Legend: The history of The Creative Assembly

[Administrator]

It's a cloudy day in Horsham, West Sussex, and as I arrive to conduct a second interview with some of the senior members of The Creative Assembly's staff, the news breaks that Sony Liverpool has been closed. This was a developer that could trace its history all the way back to 1984 when, known as Psygnosis, they were one of The Creative Assembly's peers. News of the closure has The Creative Assembly's staff wondering if this means they're now the UK's oldest surviving developer.

Whether they are or not, they're certainly one of its most successful. Curiously enough, that's thanks in no small way to Psygnosis. Then again, the history of The Creative Assembly seems to be defined by curiosities and coincidences.

25 years ago, studio founder Tim Ansell was keeping himself busy programming for the Amstrad CPC and porting games from platform to platform, working with the PC, the ZX Spectrum, the Amiga and the Commodore 64. During the late '80s and early '90s, Ansell worked with Psygnosis to port some of their most famous titles, including Microcosm and the much-lauded Shadow of the Beast.

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