Rebellion acquires TickTock Games to expand to four UK studios

UK developer Rebellion has acquired Yorkshire-based TickTock Games.

TickTock Games – which was founded by Arden Aspinall, Jonathan Wright and Paul Kelly in 2007 – have worked with Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Nvidia and BBC Worldwide, and recently worked with Rebellion on Rogue Trooper Redux and the Nintendo Switch version of Battlezone Gold Edition.

The acquisition – which will become Rebellion’s fourth UK studio, rebranded as Rebellion North – was made for an undisclosed sum and joins Rebellion Liverpool and Rebellion Warwick as sister studios to the company’s Oxford HQ. According to the press release, Rebellion North has already begun work on upcoming Rebellion games as the company "readies itself for another big year, with multiple unannounced titles set to launch in 2019".

"Bringing more great people to the company is a great way to start 2019," said Rebellion CEO and co-founder Jason Kingsley OBE. "The company continues to grow and it’s important we bring in the right people as part of that process. We’ve worked with the team at TickTock Games for a while now, and we know they’ll continue to prosper as Rebellion North."

Rebellion co-founder and CTO Chris Kingsley has received an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List. Kingsley – who also chairs TIGA’s Education Committee and the Games Council at ScreenSkills – joins his brother, Jason, Rebellion’s other co-founder, who received his OBE in 2012.

Rebellion also recently purchased a $100m, 220,000 square-foot facility near its Oxford base to transform into a film studio. The site of an old printing press will be able to "accommodate productions from TV drama to large-scale Hollywood productions" and is Rebellion’s second film studio alongside its own motion-capture company, Audiomotion, reportedly Europe’s largest performance capture stage. It’s expected the new facility will create up to 500 new jobs across Britain’s film and television industry.