Firefly Studios
Firefly Studios Limited is a British video game developer based in London, England. The company was formed in 1999 by Simon Bradbury and Eric Ouellette. The company has focused on historic real-time strategy titles for the PC and Macintosh systems, and is best known for its Stronghold series of games.
History
Firefly's first title, Stronghold was successful both critically and commercially.The company has however struggled to recreate the popularity of its original Stronghold and Stronghold: Crusader titles; Stronghold 2 and Stronghold Legends both reviewed poorly with metascores of 63% and 57% respectively, and the last of the series, ', has received the worst reviews to date, receiving average 40% scores. Their latest title Stronghold 3 has again had negative reviews by multiple gaming sites and fans for errors in the game. Although there are many problems with this game, Firefly Studios is saying they will try to patch this game every week.
A brief collaboration with Firaxis Games produced ', which again reviewed poorly, and was in fact the last Firefly title published by Take-Two Interactive.
The latest title, Stronghold Kingdoms, is Firefly's first foray into the MMO genre and was launched as an open beta in November 2010.
Firefly has also previously stated in 2008 that they would be working on Stronghold 3 then Crusader II due to the high demand by fans but only after the completion of Dungeon Hero. In 2009 when asked if they had any other unannounced game in development other than Dungeon Hero and Stronghold Kingdoms, the answer was that they still had one more game in development. In Firefly's second newsletter, they stated that they had "something very big in the pipeline" which will be revealed in 2010.
Stronghold 3 was officially announced on 14 May 2010 by SouthPeak Games. It was released in October 2011.
Stronghold Crusader II is the latest title in the Stronghold series and was scheduled for release in Q4 2013, but got later delayed to Q1 2014. It is the sequel to their 2002 title Stronghold: Crusader which is, according to Lead Designer at Firefly Studios, Simon Bradbury, "our favorite game, it’s our fans’ favorite game and it’s the game we have been waiting to put into production for several long years now." The title was released on 23 September 2014.
Future
Dungeon Hero, being developed for the PC and Xbox 360 systems, has been in development for several years. Originally being published by Gamecock Media Group until they were bought out by SouthPeak Games in October 2008, this spurred a legal squabble on the subject of ownership of the game. Dungeon Hero is currently without a publisher despite SouthPeak publishing every other Gamecock title due for release. Firefly Studios have announced that the title is on hold, and with the last of several planned release dates having passed, it has further fuelled speculation that this title is now a vaporware title.Stronghold: Next is the latest confirmed title by Firefly. On Electronic Entertainment Expo 2019, the title was revealed to be Stronghold: Warlords with a release set for 2020 on the Steam platform.
Games
| Year | Game |
| 2001 | Stronghold |
| 2002 | ' |
| 2003 | Space Colony |
| 2005 | Stronghold 2 |
| 2006 | ' |
| 2006 | Stronghold Legends |
| Cancelled | Dungeon Hero |
| 2008 | ' |
| 2009 | Stronghold Kingdoms |
| 2011 | Stronghold 3 |
| 2012 | Stronghold HD |
| 2012 | ' |
| 2012 | Space Colony HD |
| 2014 | Stronghold Crusader II |
| 2015 | Space Colony: Steam Edition |
| 2016 | Wonky Tower |
| 2016 | Stronghold Legends: Steam Edition |
| 2017 | Stronghold 2: Steam Edition |
| 2017 | Stronghold Kingdoms: Mobile Edition |
| 2017 | MetaMorph: Dungeon Creatures |
| 2020 | Stronghold: Warlords |