A warm welcome to one of our newest studio partners, DS Dambuster Studios! With multiple individuals from Dambuster involved across previous Get In The Game careers talks and with our Search For A Star assessment teams, it’s a pleasure to now have the whole studio alongside us for the 2020/21 academic year!

Deep Silver Dambuster Studios is a game developer based in Nottingham, England with a pedigree in delivering high-budget titles for both PC and console. Throughout the years, the studio has built a reputation for being a developer capable of crafting immersive, first-person experiences with unique and compelling narratives. 

Although Nottingham is well known for its active game development scene, Dambuster is one of the only studios local to the area that has been solely focused on AAA game development since its inception.

The History of Deep Silver Dambuster Studios

The Studio started out life all the way back in 1999 as Free Radical Design and went on to create three separate installments in the iconic FPS series ‘TimeSplitters’ as well as the mind-bending psychological thriller, Second Sight (2004) and Haze (2008).

The studio then joined the Crytek family in 2009 and was subsequently rebranded as Crytek UK, under which name they worked on several notable IPs including the iconic ‘Crysis’ series, Xbox One launch title, Ryse: Son of Rome (2013) and multiplayer FPS, Warface (2014).

In 2014, the studio was bought by its current owner, Deep Silver, publisher of world-renowned games including the ‘Metro’ and ‘Saints Row’ series. As part of Deep Silver, Dambuster Studios has released the dystopian first-person shooter Homefront: The Revolution (2016) along with multiple DLC packages and is currently working on the highly anticipated, next installment in the iconic zombie-slaying action series, ‘Dead Island’. 

Location and Facilities

Located next to Nottingham city centre and just a stone’s throw away from Nottingham Station – the city’s main train station – the modern studio has a range of onsite facilities including an AV room, showers, break out space, fully stocked drinks fridge and coffee machine  (we’ve also heard there is free breakfast provided on Mondays and pastries on Friday mornings too!)

The Studio recently opened its own dedicated, state of the art, Performance Capture suite based just down the round from the office in Nottingham, which is frequently used to capture data for game projects. 

People Values and Culture

Deep Silver Dambuster Studios employs over 160 people working across departments including Art, Animation, Design, Engineering, HR, Production and QA. 

The Studio has three values shared by every department; Passion, Quality and Teamwork, Studio Development Director, Rob Matthews explains their significance – ‘We are all passionate about the craft of creating interactive entertainment and while we all seek to excel in our chosen fields, we recognise that quality, and value for our audience’s time is the most valuable metric that we will be judged against, we are a team and value the importance of each other’s contribution, we demonstrate empathy and offer support in adversity.’

As well as these values, Deep Silver Dambuster Studios puts a heavy emphasis on learning and development, with plenty of opportunities to grow professionally made available to all team members and by favouring promoting team members internally over sourcing senior talent from outside the studio’s walls.

But it’s not all work! They’re a sociable bunch, with employee organised activities such as a Board Game Club, the Knitting Circle and Pub Friday (although it’s a virtual pub for the time being) and studio-wide events including the Halloween Best Dressed Contest, Christmas Party and highly anticipated Summer BBQ for employees as well as their friends and family.

The Future for Deep Silver Dambuster Studios

The future is bright for the studio, they are hard at work creating the next Dead Island title, which is a series with an already passionate and loyal fan base.

For now, the team are concentrating on delivering an awesome game that surpasses their expectations and provides players with an experience worthy of their wait.

As part of the Deep Silver family, the studio knows that they will continue to be able to work on exciting projects for years to come.

If you want to find out more about Deep Silver Dambuster Studios, check out their website here: https://www.dsdambuster.com/