Asobo Studio, now recognized for its cinematic narrative games like the award-nominated A Plague Tale: Requiem, has a history that stretches back much further than its recent success suggests. The French developer, poised to release its ambitious new action game, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, in August, began its journey not with grand artistic statements, but with a diverse portfolio that included licensed tie-ins and unexpected early projects.
Founded in 2002 by former Kalisto Entertainment developers, Asobo’s initial offerings were far from the acclaimed experiences they are known for today. Their debut title, Super Farm, was a co-op game with a peculiar premise, followed by the poorly received third-person shooter Special Forces: Nemesis Strike. These early games did not find critical success, but they allowed the studio to pivot into a more stable area of game development: licensed titles.
Over several years, Asobo developed games based on properties such as Sitting Ducks, The Mummy: The Animated Series, and Garfield: A Tale of Two Cities. While these titles were not critical darlings, they provided the studio with valuable experience and led to larger opportunities. From 2007 to 2012, Asobo became a prominent developer of movie tie-in games for Pixar, contributing to titles based on Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, and Toy Story 3.
The development of the Ratatouille game, for instance, showcased Asobo’s emerging ability to work within a cinematic framework. The game featured a Hollywood voice cast, including Patton Oswalt and Ian Holm reprising their roles from the film, and demonstrated a notable effort in character animation, earning an Annie Award for Best Animated Video Game in 2007. This period also saw Asobo hone its technical skills on diverse projects like Fuel, Recore, and assisting on Remedy Entertainment's Quantum Break, contributing to animation, lighting, and special effects.
This long and varied development path culminated in the 2019 release of A Plague Tale: Innocence, which demonstrated the cinematic storytelling and performance skills Asobo had cultivated over years of diverse projects. The studio's journey continued with A Plague Tale: Requiem, a 2022 Game of the Year nominee at The Game Awards. The studio's trajectory from licensed movie games to critically acclaimed original titles highlights the evolving role of such projects in nurturing developer talent, a pipeline that has significantly diminished in the modern era of mega-budget tie-ins.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is set to release on August 27, marking Asobo Studio’s continued evolution in the action game genre.