Ruffian Games

Ruffian Games is a Scottish video game developer founded in 2008. The developer was formed by two members, Billy Thomson and Gaz Liddon, of the video game developer Realtime Worlds. Ruffian Games originally consisted of members from Realtime Worlds and Xen Studios, among others. They have made Crackdown 2, the sequel to the 2007 video game, Crackdown.

History
Ruffian Games was officially formed in December 2008; The studio was founded by Billy Thomson (now Creative Director) and Gaz Liddon (now Studio Head). The team consisted of developers who "have worked on games like Crackdown, Fable II and Project Gotham Racing". Before the "official" announcement, however, rumors circulated that a studio was in development of the sequel to the Realtime Worlds game, Crackdown. As early as December 2008, rumors emerged that Ruffian Games was formed to create a sequel to Crackdown. In light of these rumors, Realtime Worlds issued a statement claiming that they "'continue to have ongoing discussions' with Microsoft about a Crackdown sequel, although no offer has been made". The rumors, however, ousted Ruffian Games as a Microsoft funded developer.

After the announcement, not much news circulated regarding the project the developer was currently working on. The developer was keeping its current project under wraps: "Now we're in full production, we're itching to share the fantastic work these guys have been producing" stated Liddon. On May 22, 2009, it was announced that the developer had added 15 new members to its team.

At Microsoft's 2009 E3 conference, Ruffian Games announced their project to be Crackdown 2 which was released July 6, 2010 in North America.