One of the Best-Selling PS4 Games Released 11 Years Ago Today and Ended Up Being the Studio’s Final One

Studio closures are, unfortunately, not a rare thing in the world of video game development. We see studios forced to shut their doors all the time for all kinds of reasons. It’s a little rarer, though not unheard of, for a studio to shut down after delivering one of its biggest commercial hits. However, that’s exactly what happened in 2016, when PlayStation decided to close the doors of Evolution Studios after 26 years of development. Strangely, had that decision been made a few years prior, players wouldn’t have been as surprised, because Evolution’s final game, Driveclub, was a flop at launch. Then, the team did the hard work to turn it into a best-seller before promptly being shown the door.

The History of Evolution Studios

Evolution got its start in 1999, when founders Martin Kenwright and Ian Hetherington left Digital Image Design after its publisher was bought by Infogrames. The duo opened Evolution Studios in Frodsham, Cheshire, England, and immediately began working on a racing demo based on rally cars.

That demo eventually got the team a deal with Sony to develop a game based on the World Rally Championship license for the PlayStation 2. They developed five WRC games from 2001 to 2005 and created the MotorStorm series in 2006. The next year, Evolution and its satellite studio Bigbig were acquired by Sony. Kenwright and Hetherington left the company at that point, but Evolution kept delivering quality racing games across the PlayStation 3 era.

With the PlayStation 4 on the horizon, Sony announced the studio’s next game would be Driveclub, a “socially connected racing game.” Evolution had to delay the game out of the PS4’s launch window so the team could “deliver on their vision.” It was delayed a second time in March 2014, partially due to the team having issues with the dynamic menu system. Finally, Driveclub launched in October 2014. Unfortunately, the early reviews are disappointing, to say the least.

Driveclub‘s Successful Pit Stop

At launch, Driveclub bombed with critics relative to expectations from Evolution. Before Driveclub‘s release, the developer had never had a Metacritic score below 78, with most being firmly in the 80s. Driveclub came in at a lowly 71.

That’s not a terrible score in a vacuum, but far from the quality most fans expect from Evolution. Driveclub looked great, but many reviewers hated the AI drivers, finding them too difficult, and said Driveclub lacked variety in its racing types and challenges. It wasn’t an unmitigated disaster, but it lacked the polish most Evolution fans were used to.

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Thankfully, the developers didn’t leave Driveclub out to die. Instead, it committed to supporting the game for several years. Part of that might’ve been because of how much Sony had pushed the PlayStation Plus Edition of the game. That was unfortunately delayed by a few months, but it did bring even more players into the mix.

Either way, Evolution kept working on Driveclub, even adding a standalone expansion with Driveclub Bikes and putting out a virtual reality version for the PSVR. There were MotorStorm tribute packs and an update that added dynamic weather. Evolution did everything it could to appease fans, and players rewarded them.

While Driveclub can be seen as a critical failure, it became one of the best-selling games on the PlayStation 4. It sits in 28th place on the console’s sales chart, just between Final Fantasy VII Remake and Death Stranding, with 4.97 million copies sold. That’s still far below Gran Turismo Sport’s 12.72 million copies, but it’s impossible to view Driveclub as anything less than a success for Sony.

Which makes Sony’s decision to close the studio in 2016 so puzzling. The year before, 55 staff members were cut, which Sony said was a signal that the studio was focusing on making Driveclub a live service. Sadly, the move didn’t work out, and Evolution was closed only a year later.

Most of the team then joined Codemasters as Codemasters EVO, which later became Codemasters Cheshire. They launched the arcade racer Onrush to tepid sales, despite earning higher marks from reviewers than Driveclub. Soon after, most of the team was let go, and everyone who remained was moved into a support role until EA merged the studio with Criterion Games in 2022.

Evolution Games’ sad end is becoming more of the norm in modern game development. Even if a studio puts out a successful game like Driveclub, it might not be enough. Hopefully, the tides will turn at some point, but what once felt like a rarity has only become more prevalent since Evolution closed its doors.

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