5 things you need to know about Sumo Digital
Sumo Digital is a family of exceptional talent, having built our reputation as an award-winning games developer for nearly 20 years.
Having worked on over 90 titles in that time, we’ve continued to strengthen our roots as a leading name in the industry – one that can produce incredible games, and ensure its people are at the heart of what we do.
There are many things you may already know about us and our history over the past couple of decades, but there are probably some other pieces of information you may not have heard of before.
Well, you’ve come to the right place. So, buckle up as we take you through five things you need to know about Sumo Digital.
A studio near you
You may have heard of Sumo Digital before, our HQ (and biggest studio) is situated in Sheffield, but you may not know that we have fantastic studios situated across the UK… and around the world!
In the UK, we have our Sumo city studios in Nottingham, Warrington, Leamington, and Newcastle alongside Sheffield, as well as our branded studios including The Chinese Room (Brighton), Red Kite Games (Leeds), and Lab42 Games (Leamington). But that’s not all!
Look further afield and you’ll find PixelAnt Games, based in Poland, while Sumo India works its magic over in South Asia with studios in Pune and Bangalore.
From collabs to full-time development
Did you know that Sumo Digital as a whole was originally set up as a co-development studio? Working with external partners on game projects – much like our Sumo Pune and Sumo Bangalore studios currently do to this day.
After delivering our promise to external developers with high-quality co-developed projects, we were able to build the level of expertise required to work on our own franchise IPs – something that we continue to do to this very day.
A game for the ‘hiss-tory’ books
The vast majority of our games have come from the collective minds of our people, but there’s one particular hit that was actually the result of a single person. Have you heard of Snake Pass? Well, the puzzle platformer that we launched back in 2017 was from the mind of Sebastiaan Liese, Principal Game Designer here at Sumo Digital.
Seb was one of the studio’s talented folks who presented a game idea at an internal Game Jam competition – he had been attempting to learn to program in Unreal Engine and initially created a rope but forgot to attach it to anything.
The way the rope flopped to the ground reminded him of a snake and, with a little bit of encouragement from his friends at the studio, he finetuned his initial ideas and created a demo of the game we know and love today.
Award-winning mentality
Our studios across Sumo Digital strive to not only produce the best games around but also create the best work environments for its people. And that’s certainly been recognised as we’ve scooped a number of awards over the years for our projects and the people who make them.
Some of the many accolades along the way have included Develop: Star Awards’ ‘Best Studio’, GI Biz’s ‘Best Places to Work’, and being honoured with TIGA’s ‘Best Large Independent Studio’ award. We pride ourselves on diversity and equality, and we’ve been thrilled to have also won awards as part of events such as MCV/DEVELOP’s Women in Games and ShePlaysGames, as well as being featured in the ‘Best Companies’ list for the last two years.
We’ve also scooped top marks and received numerous nominations on our games at prestigious ceremonies such as the BAFTA Game Awards.
Working on some major game titles
Sumo Digital has developed some fantastic video games over the years within its studios (and remotely of course), from our debut game Outrun 2 to well-received titles such as Spyder, Team Sonic Racing, Hotshot Racing, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. But did you also know that we’ve co-developed some big releases with third-party developers and publishers?
Some of the bigger titles that you might be aware of include action shooter Crackdown 3, the acclaimed open-world racer Forza Horizon 5, and FPS Call of Duty: Vanguard. There’s still lots more to come, as we’re currently working with other studios on highly anticipated releases such as Hogwarts Legacy and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Does Sumo Digital sound like the kind of place you’d really like to work at? Of course it does!
Check out our career opportunities right now and join the team.
