Kuju Sheffield re-branded as Chemistry

Kuju continues to grant its studios autonomy and individuality with the rebranding of its Sheffield studio – the 30-strong team is now known as Chemistry.

The move follows the renaming of its lifestyle-focused studio in Brighton to Zoe Mode earlier this year, and the name is designed to encapsulate the outfit’s focus on bringing together a variety of elements into one. Key to that is a strategy that sees the studio focus on games made with Epic’s Unreal Engine.

Studio head Simeon Pashley explained: "Chemistry is about combining known elements to cause a reaction and make something that didn’t exist before. That’s what we do: take a proven engine and add our staff’s creativity and talent in order to create something new and exciting."

The Sheffield studio has recently moved into new premises as part of its strategy to expand beyond its base of 30 staff.

Pashley added: "We’ve decided to specialise in Unreal Engine as it’s clearly an awesome next-gen toolset that frees our staff to focus on bringing their creative talents to bear without worrying about the low-level nuts and bolts. It’s also perfect for our future plans as it allows us to look forward without worrying about technology stability."

Mark Rein, VP of Epic also added: Chemistry impressed us earlier this year with a very interesting UE3-based prototype and we’re equally impressed with their business strategy as well. By specializing in Unreal Engine 3 they’re going to get continuously more proficient at using it and develop increasingly polished games over time. We know this strategy very well because it is exactly what we’re planning. Like Epic they can take advantage of having Unreal Engine 3 as their common technology base with multiple teams sharing resources and expertise to built world-class games in the most efficient fashion. Unreal Engine 3’s mature toolset, and cross-platform capabilities will help ensure their success."

The studio’s first game is To End All Wars an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game for Ghostlight which is due in 2008, as revealed by Develop a few weeks ago. It’s also working on another unannounced title.