Archer Maclean Departs Awesome Studios

Ignition Entertainment, the Chicago-headquartered owner of UK developer Awesome Studios (Archer Maclean's Mercury), has announced that Creative Director Archer Maclean has resigned from the company that he originally helped found. However, Ignition, particularly known for releasing Game Boy Advance titles and Zoo Keeper for DS in the U.S. and SNK-licensed games in Europe, as well as the recent Awesome-created Archer Maclean's Mercury puzzle title for PSP, has confirmed that Awesome Studios will continue without Maclean, who was a notable figurehead for the firm. Despite the departure, Awesome, which currently has a staff of 28 and is based in Banbury, will still be developing next-generation games exclusively for the publisher, and Archer Maclean's Mercury will still be a launch PSP title in Europe when the handheld launches on September 1. Ignition Entertainment has retained all intellectual property rights to past and future Awesome Studios titles, and projects in development will continue unaffected. Awesome Studios was founded in 2002 as the development arm of Ignition following Maclean's long 'solo' career, which included such seminal bedroom-programmed titles of the last 20 years such as Dropzone, International Karate+, and Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker. "Whilst Archer was the spokesperson for Awesome Studios, there's a 28-strong team in currently in place and Ignition Entertainment will continue to offer the development outfit creative and commercial support for its forthcoming titles," commented Vijay Chadha, Managing Director, Ignition Entertainment. "We're confident that the Awesome Studios team will continue to produce games which will excite, challenge and delight next-generation videogames players.