NaturalMotion

NaturalMotion is the company behind the Euphoria game engine used in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. NaturalMotion Games, its development division, worked on Star Wars: Hunters.

History[]

NaturalMotion Games, the game development division of the company.

Based in Oxford,^[2] NaturalMotion was funded in September 2001, thanks to funds from Oxford University.^[1] The company became known for their animation engines: Endorphin, Morpheme and Euphoria, that could be used to create movies or video games.^[3]

NaturalMotion had developed technologies that simulated the biomechanics (nervous system and musculature) of a CGI figure so that could react uniquely and realistically, without needing an animator to script the movements. Endorphin was used in pre-rendered CGI scenes in movies, whereas Euphoria was designed to operate run-time. A.I. motion controllers, named DMS Behaviors, control the figure's "muscles" according to sensory input. Nick Pavis of LucasArts, while researching ways to make video game sprites more autonomous and realistic, researched the company in late 2004. The company collaborated with Pavis and Steve Dykes to integrate an early version of Euphoria into a run-time environment which was licensed for the development of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed,^[2]^[4] and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.^[5]

On November 18, 2010, it was announced that a new division, NaturalMotion Games, has been created to focus on the development and publishing of video games.^[6]

In August 2012, the company acquired BossAlien, before being itself purchased by Zynga in February 2014 for 527 million dollars.^[1] On August 18, 2018, Disney and Zynga reached an multi-year agreement for the development of a new Star Wars mobile game, with an option on a second game. NaturalMotion was put in charge of the development of future Star Wars games. The agreement also stated for Zynga to assume operations for Disney's Star Wars: Commander, with live services responsibilities also falling under NaturalMotion.^[7]

It was revealed on February 17, 2021, that the game undergoing development at NaturalMotion, as well as it's subsidiaries BossAlien, and another unnamed studio located in Austin,^[8] was titled Star Wars: Hunters.^[9]