Insomniac Games

Insomniac Games is a developer and publisher.

Insomniac Games Webpage, Facebook

The American studio based in Burbank, California, has had Ted Price serving as its president since its establishment. Although Insomniac Games initially focused on developing titles exclusively for PlayStation consoles - most notably the Ratchet & Clank series - the studio's portfolio has since broadened to include games released for PC, Xbox One, mobile devices, and even social media platforms. Insomniac Games has also published some of its own titles. In August 2019, the studio was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

The history of Insomniac Games

Cloning Doom

Xtreme Software, founded by Ted Price, began operations in February 1994. Shortly thereafter, Price was joined by brothers Alex and Brian Hastings. The team was soon forced to change its name, as the one they had chosen was already in use. Ultimately, the team settled on the name Insomniac Games; however, the developers had also considered alternatives such as The Resistance Incorporated, Ragnarok, and Black Sun Software.

Insomniac Games' debut project was intended to be a first-person shooter, which the team described as a "Doom clone". Facing limited financial resources, the studio opted to acquire Panasonic 3DO development kits. The game was to be published by Universal Interactive Studios. Because Panasonic's hardware sales were disappointing, the developers, following Mark Cerny's advice, decided to port their first game to a different platform.

Disruptor, the first-person shooter, debuted on the PlayStation in November 1996. Despite receiving acclaim from critics and notable developers like John Romero, the game suffered from poor sales due to ineffective marketing. The studio was on the brink of bankruptcy but managed to survive. Price and the team decided to abandon plans for a Disruptor sequel and start fresh.

The grand entrance

The studio followed up with Spyro the Dragon, a 3D platformer influenced by the hit Super Mario 64. The game ran on a proprietary graphics engine, and its main character - the dragon it's named after - ended up becoming the unofficial mascot of the PlayStation brand. Released in late 1998, the title got a warm reception from reviewers, but its early sales were pretty underwhelming. That changed over the holidays, and the game eventually hit around two million players.

A year later, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage was released. Like the one before it, the game did really well, so twelve months later, Spyro: Year of the Dragon made its debut on the PlayStation. After that, the developers decided it was time to take on some new challenges. Insomniac Games ended its partnership with Universal Interactive Studios, which left the rights to the Spyro brand in Universal's hands. The studio soon teamed up with Sony Computer Entertainment to make games for PlayStation consoles over the next few years, all while staying fully independent.

Space travels

The year 2000 saw the release of Sony's second home console, which was set to host the studio's next project. The developers thought about making a game called Monster Knight, but the first results didn't turn out well. The studio's second project, tentatively called Girl With a Stick and inspired by The Legend of Zelda and Tomb Raider, also fell short of their expectations. In the end, the developers decided to go with a game that had a slightly lighter tone.

That's how the Ratchet & Clank series was born, with the developers drawing on a space travel theme, ideas from Conker's Bad Fur Day, and mechanics they had used in Spyro the Dragon. The production was built using technology from the Naughty Dog studio, and was further enhanced with elements from shooter and RPG games. Ratchet & Clank launched in November 2002, and the Japanese publisher was so confident it would be a hit that they offered to finance a sequel five months before it even came out. Players only had to wait a year for the second installment, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando. Twelve months later, the developers released the third game in the series, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, adding features like a multiplayer mode.

The title was a commercial and industry success; it was clear the creators had no plans to leave the brand behind. To prevent burnout, Ted Price's team decided to make several changes while working on the series' fourth installment. First, the game was set to take on a slightly darker tone, and second, Clank was planned to have a much smaller role. The result was Ratchet: Gladiator, which came out in 2005.

Alternative story

The upcoming PlayStation 3 launch was set to let the developers start a new franchise. Work on it started in earnest immediately after Ratchet: Gladiator was done. As a result, the game was ready to launch alongside the console in 2006.

The title in question is Resistance: Fall of Man, a first-person shooter set in an alternate reality where Earth faces a brutal alien invasion in the 1950s. The game was a commercial success. The sequel, Resistance 2, released in 2008, brought several changes that didn't sit well with some of the studio staff. Players weren't thrilled with the new features either, so the developers went back to many of the original game's ideas in the third installment.

Before Resistance 3 came out, three more titles in the Ratchet & Clank series were released: Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, and Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. Furthermore, in 2008, the company opened a new studio in North Carolina. While the new team was working on Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One (and would later develop Ratchet & Clank: QForce), the main team focused on the third Resistance game. Poor sales of the latter title led its creators to announce in early 2012 that they had no plans to continue the franchise, with the rights now belonging to Sony.

Cracks showing

In 2010, the developers announced a partnership with Electronic Arts, which would publish their first multiplatform project under the EA Partners program for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Before its launch, a separate division called Insomniac Click was set up to focus on creating casual games for social networks. The first and only title of this type was Outernauts, released in 2012 for mobile devices and Facebook.

The multiplatform game mentioned above was showcased at E3 in 2011. Overstrike, as it was called at the time, was a shooter mainly aimed at teens. The title, later renamed Fuse, launched in May 2013 - but it flopped in sales and ended up being the studio's lowest-rated release.

At that point, it looked like the developers had truly ended their partnership with Sony. As it soon turned out, that couldn't have been further from the truth, and Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus proved it.

Sandbox frenzy

Insomniac Games' next project launched a year later. Sunset Overdrive was published by Microsoft Studios and released exclusively for the Xbox One. In 2016, they followed up with a complete Ratchet & Clank remake for PlayStation 4 and the metroidvania Song of the Deep. At the same time, the developers launched Edge of Nowhere, an action-adventure game for the Oculus Rift. Encouraged by the VR platform, they released two more titles a few months later: Feral Rites and The Unspoken.

However, it was the reveal of another Insomniac Games title, developed with Sony Interactive Entertainment and Marvel Entertainment, that really captured gamers' attention. Spider-Man, released on PlayStation 4 in 2018, was a critical and commercial hit - selling over 13 million copies in less than a year.

As their collaboration had been exceptionally successful, on August 19th, 2019, Sony announced that it was finalizing the purchase of Insomniac Games. Just before Christmas that year, Imran Khan, former senior editor at Game Informer, hinted that Marvel's Spider-Man could get a sequel "sooner than we think". Although no one said it outright, it seemed natural that the Insomniac Games team would handle the development of the sequel.

A strong entry into the ninth generation of consoles

Insomniac Games finally revealed its long-kept secrets in June 2020, unveiling two new projects. The first was Spider-Man: Miles Morales, a follow-up to the 2018 Spider-Man game, letting players take on the role of Peter Parker's apprentice, Miles Morales. The game was set to release on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, serving as one of the launch titles for Sony's new console. Later, it was revealed that the developers had also created a remaster of their original Spider-Man game, set to launch on the same day as the sequel.

The second title unveiled by Insomniac Games was Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. The game was set to be a real showcase for the PlayStation 5, particularly highlighting its SSD. Unlike Spider-Man: Miles Morales, this title was set to release a bit later, following the launch of Sony's fifth home console.

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales debuted on November 12th, 2020, for both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart launched on PlayStation 5 in June 2021. Both games were hits - critically and commercially - and, like other Sony Interactive Entertainment titles, they eventually made their way to PC as well. In August 2022, Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered arrived on PC, but it didn't become available as a standalone title for PlayStation 5 owners until May 2023.

Insomniac Games' next major release didn't arrive until October 2023. At that time, the complete Marvel's Spider-Man 2 hit PlayStation 5. The game was both a critical and commercial hit - becoming the fastest-selling title in PlayStation Studios history - and earned an average industry score of 90/100 on Metacritic.

Marvel's Wolverine, continuing the adventures from the comics

Shortly after the release of the last of these games, in December 2023, Insomniac Games suffered a hack and data leak affecting both current and upcoming projects. Regarding the latter, one of them was Marvel's Wolverine, announced in September 2021 and directed by Walt Williams, whose credits include the script for Spec Ops: The Line.

In October 2024, Game File revealed that the latest of these projects had lost its creative director. A report from that time stated that Brian Horton had not worked on the game since summer 2024 and had moved on to The Initiative studio to contribute to Perfect Dark. The report stated that Marcus Smith had been named the new creative director of Wolverine. The game's director was also changed, with Cameron Christian being replaced by Mike Daly.

Changes at the top

In January 2025, Ted Price, the studio's CEO, announced his retirement from the video game industry after 30 years at Insomniac Games. At the end of March 2025, his duties were set to be taken over by three people: Chat Dezern, Ryan Schneider, and Jen Huang. While Dezern was assigned to oversee the studio's projects and shape its long-term development strategy, Schneider was responsible for communications and coordination with other teams, and Huang handled external partnerships, content management, and the business side - operations and products.

Just a few days later, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 launched on PC, with the port developed in collaboration with Nixxes Software.