Psygnosis: Wipeout, Lemmings and the Coolest Studio in Games

Psygnosis was the studio that made games look expensive. Founded in Liverpool in 1984, it built its name on the Amiga with lavish, gorgeous productions like Shadow of the Beast and box art so beautiful people bought games just to own it. Then it published Lemmings, a puzzle game about doomed little creatures that sold in the millions. And then, as a launch studio for the PlayStation, it made Wipeout, an anti-gravity racer wrapped in techno music and cutting-edge graphic design that, for a moment, made video games the coolest thing in youth culture.

This is the studio's arc: the Amiga showcases, the Lemmings phenomenon, and the neon-lit PlayStation cool of Wipeout. Here is the map.

From the Amiga to the PlayStation

Psygnosis had two golden ages. In the first, it was the class act of the Amiga, publishing technical showpieces and dressing them in the era's most beautiful packaging. In the second, having been bought by Sony, it became one of the defining studios of the original PlayStation, giving the new machine its cool with Wipeout and a run of slick, stylish racers and shooters. Few studios reinvented themselves so completely and stayed this good.