A computer game company founded in Liverpool in 1984. Psygnosis has created more than 100 titles on different platforms including Commodore 64, Amiga, PC and Playstation. Most games were developed in-house, but the company also published games
created by external software studios. My experiences of the Psygnosis games come mostly from the golden age of the Amiga - perhaps you also remember the classics like Blood Money, Shadow of the Beast and Lemmings?
After the Amiga years Psygnosis went through a series of changes. First it was acquired in 1993 by the Sony Corporation for which it created many hit titles, most notably the Formula 1 game and the Wipeout series on the Playstation platform. Later in 1998 Eidos Interactive bought the European branch of Psygnosis while the Sony-owned part continued to sink deeper into the depths of the megacorporation, finally abandoning the PC game market in 2000. Nowadays the remainders of Psygnosis are called Studio Liverpool and they continue developing Playstation 2 games under Sony Computer Entertainment brand.
Some Psygnosis hit titles:
- Shadow of the Beast
(Amiga, Commodore 64 version by Ocean, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad 464 versions by Gremlin Graphics, PC, Atari ST, Atari Lynx, Sega Megadrive (Genesis), SNES, NEC TurboGrafx-16)
- Lemmings
(Amiga, Acorn Archimedes, Commodore 64, Amstrad 464, Atari ST, Macintosh, ZX Spectrum, PC, Atari Lynx, Nintendo Game Boy, NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive (Genesis), Sega Game Gear, 3DO, Amiga CDTV + CD32, CDi) (phew)
- Destruction Derby (PC, Playstation)
- Formula 1 series (PC, Playstation)
- Wipeout series (PC, Playstation)