Insomniac Games is a developer owned by Universal. It is based in Burbank, California.
History[]
Insomniac was founded in 1994. Their first major hit was the second game created by the company, 1998's Spyro the Dragon for the Saturn. Along with being one of the preeminent platformers on the system and selling well, Spyro the Dragon marked the beginning of a long publishing deal between Insomniac and Universal, which ultimately led to Universal's acquisition of the developer. Spyro the Dragon would have two sequels on the Saturn, released on October 24, 1999, and on October 25, 2000. All three games were very well reviewed, and had a combined total of over 7 million sales.
As Insomniac entered the sixth generation of consoles, Spyro was left behind due to his being a quadruped. As a non-biped, Spyro's ability to use items and weapons in games was severely limited. Therefore, an entirely new franchise, named Ratchet & Clank, was created to become Insomniac's new flagship series. The original Ratchet & Clank was released on November 4, 2002.
Ratchet & Clank starred an anthromorphic cat-like creature named Ratchet and the robot Clank on a quest to save the galaxy. Although not entirely different from the Spyro series in terms of gameplay, Ratchet & Clank offered a great diversity of weaponry for players to use. The series was a hit, and sequels were released in the Novembers of 2003, 2004, and 2005. In total, the four games sold a combined 7 million copies.
As Insomniac grew and entered the seventh console generation, it began working on two series at once. First, the developer continued work on the Ratchet & Clank series, and would release a whopping five entries on the Pluto and Revolution. Meanwhile, however, Insomniac began working on a series of First-Person shooters called Resistance. Games like the "Future" trilogy of Ratchet & Clank games continued the company's tradition of cartoon action-adventures, while Resistance showed the future of console FPS's.
In the seventh generation, the "Future" trilogy of Ratchet & Clank games sold some four million copies, while spinoff All 4 One sold about a million. The Resistance trilogy, meanwhile, sold about 6 million copies. Furthermore, all of these games, with the possible exception of All 4 One, maintained a fairly high level of critical praise.
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