Supergiant Games: Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades.

• Valve, when they actually make games… and when those games aren’t Artifact or Dota Underlords…
• id Software
• Telltale Games
• Frictional Games (Amnesia, SOMA)
• Red Barrels (Outlast)
• Playdead (INSIDE, LIMBO)
• Landfall (Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, ROUNDS, Clustertruck, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, etc)
• Daniel Mullins (Inscryption, Pony Island, The Hex)
• David Szymanski (DUSK, Chop Goblins)
• Mason Lindroth (Hylics)
• Obsidian’s older stuff
• Rocksteady’s older stuff
• I have a love/hate relationship with FromSoft
• Honorable mention to Nightdive: They do fantastic modern remasters of older games, like Quake 1 and 2, System Shock 2, Blood: Fresh Supply, etc.

FROM SOFTWARE

I think klei may be my favourite studio. They create amazing games that are all truly unique but backed by strong game design concepts.

Mark of the ninja - great 2d stealth game were most games in the genre are 3d.

Invisible Inc - great turn-based Rougelike stealth game.

Don’t starve - probably one of the best survival games out there that relies on clever resource management rather than combat

Oxygen not included - a base building survival game, that is well designed to ramp up difficulty with the long term needs of your base

Griftlands - deck building game with a charming plot and interesting mechanics.

Each game they output is truly unique and interesting experience with some really clever design choices, but I think the point they became my favourite studio is when I read their article on Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic rewards to appreciate how well thought out their games were.

What metric are we using? The developer whose games I like the most? The developer who treats their employees best? Or treats their customers best?

Valve has produced mostly bangers, seems to treat customers well and is by all accounts a great place to work. They’ve also been pushing development for gaming on Linux. Hard not to go with them, even though it’s debatable whether they could be classified as a game developer anymore. But that’s fine.

Remedy deserves a shout-out for sticking to their guns, and continuing to produce weird artistic games that push the envelope in the AAA space.

I’m not as high on BG3 as most people (though it’s obviously a great game), but Larian also belongs in the discussion surely. I only ever hear good things about them.

Finally, the developer who inspires me the most is probably Lucas Pope. I love his ability to think outside the box and find entertaining gameplay loops in seemingly mundane things, but moreover I am just so impressed by how multitalented he is. I still can’t believe Obra Dinn was a one-man production. I love his artstyle and the music he makes as much as the games themselves.

• BioWare before EA (Mass Effect 1)
• Popcap before EA (Plants vs Zombies)
• Maxis before EA (SimCity 2000)
• Bethesda before Microsoft (Fallout 3)

Zacktronics

have made a few really really good programming / puzzle games.

Brace yourselfes

made crypt of the necrodancer and phantom brigade , both of which are really good ideas and if you haven’t checked them out, you should.

Remedy Entertainment. They have been making banger after banger in my opinion, all the way back to Max Payne (and i wasted so many hours on Death Rally). Always heavy focus on plot, and well developed gameplay. Memorable soundtracks on most cases too.

Remedy Entertainment. From Max Payne 1 & 2, to Alan Wake 1 & 2, to Quantum Break, to Control, there has not been a game from them that I’ve played that hasn’t been absolutely fantastic. They have not failed to miss so far.

Arkane Studios, for Dishonored, Prey, Dark Messiah, Deathloop.

Used to be Looking Glass Studios. And then Ion Storm. Do you see a pattern?

Wube creators of Factorio.
Klei Creators of Oxygen Not Included and Don’t Starve.
Concerned Ape creator of Stardew Valley.
Hovgaard Games creator of Startup Company and Big Ambitions.

Favourite is probably Naughty Dog as it’s one of the few studios that keeps producing amazing games and is fairly consistent.

Most other studios drop the ball at some point.

I’m going to go a little unpopular here, and say Paradox Interactive.

Their milking of their properties with DLC is the stuff of legends, but at the end of the day, nobody else is even close at modeling rich, complex and hugely broad historical simulation the way they do. They’re everything I ever wanted when I was a kid, playing Koei strat games. When you’re that good at what you do, fine, make money. Whatever.

Oh, look. Another DLC… sigh

Coffee Stain Studios. In house, they’ve developed Goat Simulator and Satisfactory. They’ve also published Valhiem and Deep Rock Galactic.

Tynan.