TT Games Studios Limited (previously known as Traveller's Tales) is a British video game developer and a subsidiary of TT Games. Traveller's Tales was founded in 1989 by Jon Burton and Andy Ingram. Initially a small company focused on its own games, it grew in profile through developing games with larger companies such as Sega and Disney Interactive Studios. In 2004, development on Lego Star Wars: The Video Game started with Giant Interactive Entertainment, the exclusive rights holder to Lego video games. Traveller's Tales bought the company in 2005, and the two merged to create TT Games, with Traveller's Tales becoming the new company's development arm.
History Founding and work with Disney and Sega (1989–2007)
Traveller's Tales started developing games with Psygnosis, which were most notable for creating 3D effects. Their first game was Leander, also known as The Legend of Galahad. With Psygnosis it developed a video game adaption of Bram Stoker's Dracula, as well as other original productions like Puggsy and Rascal. Thanks to an agreement between Psygnosis, Sony Imagesoft and Disney Interactive Studios, Traveller's Tales could produce several games based on Disney's properties, such as the Mickey Mouse game Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse and other games based on Pixar films like Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue and Finding Nemo (the latter two thanks to agreements with Activision and THQ).
Traveller's Tales was best known in the 1990s and early 2000s for its second-party collaboration with Sega to develop games based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, resulting in Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R, which were produced in close effort with Sega's Sonic Team. Both games were regarded as technical achievements in the Mega Drive (Sonic 3D Blast) and the Sega Saturn (Sonic R), adding to the high-tech development status it already had with games like Puggsy, Mickey Mania and Toy Story. They were also responsible for Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex and Crash Twinsanity, under the Vivendi label.
They developed Lego Star Wars: The Video Game as well as its follow-ups. Outside of the Lego games, its work includes entries in the Crash Bandicoot franchise, two The Chronicles of Narnia games, Super Monkey Ball Adventure, and World Rally Championship and F1 Grand Prix for the PlayStation Portable.
Warner Bros. acquisition and Lego titles (2007–present) The company was purchased by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment at the end of 8 November 2007, but continued to operate independently. Following the release of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), Traveller's Tales would work exclusively on Lego titles – though other TT subsidiaries such as TT Fusion continued to use other intellectual property until the early 2010s. While some of the early Lego titles would be published by LucasArts, from 2011 Warner would also act as the studio's exclusive publisher.
In 2015, Traveller's Tales entered the toys-to-life business with Lego Dimensions, which used a toy pad to enter physical Lego minifigures and Lego models into the game, as well as interact with gameplay. The game included existing Lego themes like DC Comics, The Lego Movie and The Lord of the Rings, as well as new properties such as Portal 2 and Wizard of Oz. The game was discontinued in October 2017.
Traveller's Tales has won two BAFTAs, one for Gameplay with Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, and one for Children's Videogame of the Year for Lego Batman: The Videogame.
On December 11, 2018, Traveller's Tales was renamed TT Games Studios.
On 20 January 2022, a report published by Polygon detailed the amount of crunch that occurred at the studio during the development of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, including dozens inside the company being at odds with management, due to expressing frustration over tight development schedules, the company's crunch culture, and outdated development tools. In addition, the use of NTT (a new in-house engine that was being developed to replace Traveller's Tales' previous engine in attempt to avoid paying royalties for using a third-party engine like Unreal Engine or Unity) was controversial within the company, as many employees had been pushing to instead use Unreal Engine. NTT turned out to be difficult to use, with some animations taking hours more to produce than they would on the old engine. As a result, The Skywalker Saga would end up being the only game developed by Traveller's Tales to use NTT, with the company deciding to use Unreal Engine going forward for its future projects.
Games developed Year Title Publisher(s) Platforms 1991 Leander PsygnosisElectronic Arts (Mega Drive) Amiga, Atari ST, Mega Drive 1993 Bram Stoker's Dracula Sony Imagesoft Mega Drive, Super NES Puggsy Psygnosis Amiga, Mega Drive, Mega-CD 1994 Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse Sony Imagesoft (Mega Drive/Mega-CD/SNES)Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (PlayStation) Mega Drive, Sega CD, PlayStation, Super NES 1995 Toy Story Disney Interactive Mega Drive, Microsoft Windows, Super NES 1996 Sonic 3D Blast Sega Mega Drive, Sega Saturn 1997 Sonic R Microsoft Windows, Sega Saturn 1998 Rascal Psygnosis PlayStation A Bug's Life Disney Interactive (Windows)Sony Computer Entertainment (PlayStation)Activision (Nintendo 64) Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1999 Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue Activision Dreamcast, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2000 Muppet RaceMania Midway Games (US)Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (PAL) PlayStation Buzz Lightyear of Star Command Activision Dreamcast, Game Boy Color, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2001 Toy Story Racer PlayStation Weakest Link Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, PlayStation 2 Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex Vivendi Universal Games GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox 2002 Haven: Call of the King Midway Games PlayStation 2 2003 Finding Nemo THQ GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox 2004 Crash Twinsanity Vivendi Universal Games PlayStation 2, Xbox 2005 Lego Star Wars: The Video Game Eidos Interactive/Giant Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Windows)Feral Interactive (OS X) GameCube, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox F1 Grand Prix Sony Computer Entertainment PlayStation Portable The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Buena Vista Games GameCube, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox World Rally Championship Sony Computer Entertainment PlayStation Portable 2006 Super Monkey Ball Adventure Sega GameCube, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy LucasArts (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Windows)Feral Interactive (OS X) GameCube, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360 Bionicle Heroes Eidos Interactive GameCube, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Wii, Xbox 360 2007 Transformers: The Game Activision Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga LucasArts (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, Wii)Feral Interactive (OS X)Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (iOS, Android) Android, iOS, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 2008 Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures LucasArtsFeral Interactive (OS X) Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Wii, Xbox 360 Lego Batman: The Videogame Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentFeral Interactive (OS X) Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Wii, Xbox 360 The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Disney Interactive Studios Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, Wii 2009 Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues LucasArtsFeral Interactive (OS X) Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 2010 Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentFeral Interactive (OS X) Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 2011 Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars LucasArtsFeral Interactive (OS X) Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game Disney Interactive Studios Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7 Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentFeral Interactive (OS X) Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 2012 Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360 Lego The Lord of the Rings Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 2013 Lego Marvel Super Heroes Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, OS X, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, Xbox 360 2014 Lego The Hobbit Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One 2015 Lego DimensionsWarner Bros. Interactive Entertainment PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One 2016 Lego Marvel's AvengersWarner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentFeral Interactive (OS X) Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One 2017 Lego WorldsWarner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentFeral Interactive (macOS) macOS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One 2018 Lego DC Super-Villains macOS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One 2019 The Lego Movie 2 Videogame macOS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One 2022 Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Warner Bros. Games Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S 2026 Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
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