Firaxis Games

**Firaxis Games** is an American video game developer founded in 1996 by Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs, and Brian Reynolds upon leaving MicroProse. The company focuses on strategy video games and is based in Sparks, Maryland.

## History

Early on, Firaxis has produced several PC games, including *Sid Meier's Gettysburg!* and *Sid Meier's Antietam!*, based on their namesake famous American Civil War battles, and *Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri*, a space colonization game taking place in the Alpha Centauri star system. In early 2000, co-founder Brian Reynolds parted with Firaxis to form his new studio, Big Huge Games. Firaxis Games then went on to release *Sid Meier's SimGolf*, a golf course building/management game. Perhaps their most popular releases have been *Civilization III*, and later *Civilization IV*, sequels to Meier's original *Civilization* game. In November 2004, Firaxis released *Sid Meier's Pirates!*, a remake of Meier's classic 1987 game of the same name. An Xbox version of the game was released in 2005 and a PSP version (developed by Full Fat) was released in 2007. *Civilization IV* started production in late 2003 and was released in 2005. *Civilization Revolution*, a console-only version of their popular *Civilization* series, was released in 2008.

On November 7, 2005, Take-Two Interactive announced that it was acquiring Firaxis. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but according to the SEC filing it amounted for 26.7 million in cash, stock, and development advances, with almost 11.3 million of that figure coming in the form of possible considerations based on future product sales. The company was consolidated with PopTop Software in March 2006, the resultant combined studio to be headed up by Sid Meier. Jeff Briggs assumed the role of Chairman in April 2006 and left the company completely in November. In April 2007, it was announced that Soren Johnson had left the company and joined Electronic Arts to work on *Spore* with Lead Designer Will Wright. Johnson was formerly a key person for Firaxis, acting as Co-Designer for *Civilization III* and later Lead Designer on *Civilization IV*. In September 2009, the studio moved from Hunt Valley, Maryland to Sparks, Maryland.

## Games

Firaxis' titles are frequently prefixed with Sid Meier's name, due to his design and programming contributions and original game ideas. His name also contributes to their game's marketability due to his high industry profile and track record.

* *Sid Meier's Gettysburg!* (1997)
	+ *Sid Meier's Antietam!* (1998)
* *Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri* (1999)
	+ *Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire* (1999)
* *Sid Meier's Civilization III* (2001)
	+ *Sid Meier's Civilization III: Play the World* (2002)
	+ *Sid Meier's Civilization III: Conquests* (2003)
* *Sid Meier's SimGolf* (2002)
* *Sid Meier's Pirates!* (2004)
* *Sid Meier's Civilization IV* (2005)
	+ *Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Warlords* (2006)
	+ *Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword* (2007)
* *Sid Meier's Railroads!* (2006)
* *Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution* (2008)
* *Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization* (2008)
* *Sid Meier's Civilization V* (2010)
	+ *Civilization V: Gods & Kings* (2012)
	+ *Civilization V: Brave New World* (2013)
* *XCOM: Enemy Unknown* (2012)
	+ XCOM: Enemy Within|*XCOM: Enemy Within* (2013)
* *Haunted Hollow* (2013)
* *Sid Meier's Ace Patrol* (2013)

(Sourced from Wikipedia)