Alvin singco s: Created page with "{{Infobox company | name = Unknown Worlds Entertainment | logo = UnknownWorldsLogo.jpg | type = | foundation = 2001 | location = San Francisco, California | key_people =..."

2019-08-09T09:09:37Z

Created page with "{{Infobox company | name = Unknown Worlds Entertainment | logo = UnknownWorldsLogo.jpg | type = | foundation = 2001 | location = San Francisco, California | key_people =..."

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{{Infobox company
| name = Unknown Worlds Entertainment
| logo = UnknownWorldsLogo.jpg
| type =
| foundation = 2001
| location = [[San Francisco]], California
| key_people = Ted Gill, president 
Charlie Cleveland, founder and director
| industry = [[Computer and video game industry|Computer and video games]]
| products = ''[[Natural Selection (video game)|Natural Selection]]'' ''[[Zen of Sudoku]]'' ''[[Natural Selection 2]]'' ''[[Decoda]]'' ''[[Subnautica]]'' ''[[Future Perfect (video game)|Future Perfect]]
| num_employees = 20
| homepage = [http://www.unknownworlds.com/ www.unknownworlds.com]
}}

'''Unknown Worlds Entertainment''' is an independent [[United States|American]] game-development company whose goal is to "unite the world through play". Based in [[San Francisco]], [[California]], the studio is best known for the ''[[Natural Selection (video game)|Natural Selection]]'' series and ''[[Subnautica]]''.

==History==
Unknown Worlds was formed in May 2001 by Charlie Cleveland and began life as a group of developers responsible for the development of the high-profile free [[mod (computer gaming)|mod]] for ''[[Half-Life (video game)|Half-Life]]'', ''[[Natural Selection (computer game)|Natural Selection]]''. The success of Natural Selection convinced Cleveland to start work on a commercial sequel to the game: ''[[Natural Selection 2]]''. Soon after Cleveland founded Unknown Worlds Entertainment as a commercial computer games studio.

Although the [[casual games]] market is not the intended direction of Unknown Worlds, ''Zen of Sudoku'', a casual puzzle computer game based on the popular logic puzzle ''Sudoku'', was created in November 2006 in order to generate revenue towards funding the development of [[Natural Selection 2]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Morgan McGuire, Odest Chadwicke Jenkins |title= Creating Games: Mechanics, Content, and Technology |url= https://books.google.rs/books?id=swvSgicJM5IC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=Zen+of+Sudoku+funding+Natural+Selection+2&source=bl&ots=dE-4xnpj7z&sig=jdYo0yu06ZIvX-KQLNM_yRyWydM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjdjdqnj-PfAhWRJHwKHR2GDpoQ6AEwBXoECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q=Zen%20of%20Sudoku%20funding%20Natural%20Selection%202&f=false |publisher= CRC Press |page= 28 |date= 2009|isbn=9781568813059}}</ref> Charlie Cleveland, one of the developers of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, cited casual games development as a "last option" for funding this sequel, having been unwilling to sacrifice control of the company to external investors.<ref name=gamespot>{{cite web|url=https://www.gamespot.com/articles/charlie-clevelands-small-game-biz/1100-6155717/|title=Charlie Cleveland's small-game biz|accessdate=2006-09-04|author=Patrick Caldwell|publisher=[[GameSpot]]|date=2006-08-17}}</ref>

In October 2006, Max McGuire became the studio's co-founder, having previously worked at [[Iron Lore Entertainment]] as Lead Engine Programmer. McGuire became the Technical Director of UWE and development of Natural Selection 2 began in earnest. Max and Charlie then attracted a group of angel investors including Richard Kain, [[Matthew Le Merle]], [[Ira Rothken]] and Colin Wiel to back the company after a meeting at GDC in San Francisco. A year later, Unknown Worlds released ''Decoda'' as a commercial debugger for the [[Lua (programming language)|Lua]] programming language. This application was created to aid with development of ''Natural Selection 2'', whose game code was largely being written in Lua.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://unknownworlds.com/blog/lua-ide-decoda-open-source/|title=Decoda Lua IDE now Open Source|work=UnknownWorlds}}</ref>

Later on in development of ''Natural Selection 2'', the studio announced it had changed engine from the [[Source engine]] to their own proprietary engine developed in-house. After consulting their fanbase on a possible name for their new engine, it was finally named the Evolution engine. Later, it transpired that the name Evolution was already taken and Spark was chosen as the name for the engine.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://twitter.com/NS2/status/2013637998|title=Natural Selection 2 on Twitter|work=Twitter}}</ref>

In June 2008, Cory Strader was hired as art director.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unknownworlds.com/about/|title=About - UnknownWorlds|work=UnknownWorlds}}</ref> Strader had been a previous key member of the development team for ''Natural Selection''. In May 2009, Unknown Worlds began taking pre-orders for standard and special edition versions of ''Natural Selection 2''. ''Natural Selection 2'' was released on 31 October 2012.<ref>{{cite web|title=Natural Selection 2 on Steam|url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/4920/|website=Steam Store|accessdate=16 January 2017}}</ref>

In February 2013, Unknown Worlds released the source code for ''Decoda'' onto [[GitHub]].

In early 2019 [[Perfect World Entertainment]] sold their majority interest and the company has become independent again.

==Games==
*''[[Natural Selection (video game)|Natural Selection]]'' (2002)
*''Zen of Sudoku'' (2006)
*''[[Natural Selection 2]]'' (2012)
*''[[Subnautica]]'' (2018)
*''Subnautica: Below Zero'' (2019)
*''Future Perfect'' (TBA)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2015/Volume-38-Issue-1-Jan-Feb-2015-/Rev-up-your-engines.aspx|title=Rev up your engines|work=Computer Graphics World|accessdate=19 April 2016}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{official website}}

[[Category:Companies based in San Francisco]]
[[Category:Companies established in 2001]]
[[Category:Video game companies of the United States]]
[[Category:Video game development companies]]

Unknown Worlds Entertainment - Revision history

Alvin singco s: Created page with "{{Infobox company | name = Unknown Worlds Entertainment | logo = UnknownWorldsLogo.jpg | type = | foundation = 2001 | location = San Francisco, California | key_people =..."