Firefly Studios is a BAFTA nominated video game studio consisting of around 40 full time staff, specialising in strategy games since 1999.
History
Creators of the BAFTA nominated Stronghold series, Firefly Studios is a Devolver Digital group developer with over 20 years of experience publishing historical strategy games on PC and mobile. Enjoyed worldwide by a community of millions, their games have a dedicated international following and rich legacy in gaming.
Firefly is a close-knit interdisciplinary group of around 40 people from around the world. All staff across programming, art, production, design, QA and marketing are talented, self-driven individuals who collectively punch well above their weight as a studio.
As a company Firefly values and benefits from individual expression and passion, channeling this into deep, systems-driven experiences custom made for strategy gamers worldwide.
Early Years
Co-founders Simon Bradbury and Eric Ouellette first met in the 90s at Impressions Games. Working together on titles like Lords of the Realm and Caesar, the pair eventually decided to establish Firefly in 1999. Aiming to merge the City Builder and Real-Time Strategy genres, without sacrificing the fun or depth of either, Stronghold was released in 2001 to critical acclaim.
The game was a surprise hit for Take Two in North America, the UK and Germany, with critics praising Stronghold’s unique premise, British charm and playability. A year later Firefly released Stronghold: Crusader which shifted the game’s setting from medieval England to the Middle East, alongside a more fast-paced RTS experience and unique economic gameplay. Crusader would eventually become the fan-favourite Stronghold and each game went on to sell over 2 million copies.
Online & Free-to-Play
Seven years and seven games later Firefly quickly prototyped and released a closed Alpha for Stronghold Kingdoms, the studio’s first foray into free-to-play and massively multiplayer gaming. Over the course of the next two years Kingdoms’ player base grew from tens to hundreds of thousands, entering open beta in 2010 and launching on Steam in 2012. It would remain in the Top 10 Most Popular free-to-play games on Steam for years and is still played today by over 100,000 monthly active users across PC and mobile.
Modern Stronghold
Following the successful release of the long awaited Stronghold Crusader 2, design work began on Firefly’s next 3D entry in the series. Lead Designer Simon Bradbury knew he wanted to evolve the estates system from previous games, giving players greater control and strategic options. The East Asia setting of Stronghold: Warlords provided a suitable framework for unique AI commanders, as well as new siege equipment, gunpowder and troops from four different nations. Released in 2021, Warlords enjoyed a warm critical reception at launch and, like its predecessor, became a global top seller on Steam.
The Future
Combining Firefly’s desire to revisit classic isometric 2D strategy with their fan’s longing for an experience reminiscent of the first two Stronghold games, work began on a remaster inspired by their RTS peers. Through the collaborative efforts of one veteran coder, designer, artists and returning voice actors, Firefly began development on Stronghold: Definitive Edition.
Showcasing carefully remade artwork, a new campaign and more, the game was announced to ecstatic fans in July 2023. Following a number of public demos, including the October Steam Next Fest where it was among the most played titles, Stronghold: DE was fine-tuned with player feedback to recapture the spirit of the golden-age of RTS.
At launch Stronghold: Definitive Edition became a critical and commercial success for Firefly. It topped the Global Top Sellers chart as one of Steam’s Top Selling Games of November 2023, with over 100,000 sales in the first 72 hours. The game garnered a ‘Very Positive’ Steam user score, received the highest Metacritic rating in the Stronghold series and most Steam concurrents with nearly 10,000 CCUs at launch.
Today work continues on a new entry in the Stronghold series being made using Unreal Engine 5.