High Moon Studios

High Moon Studios, Inc. (formerly Sammy Entertainment Inc. and Sammy Studios, Inc.) is an American video game developer initially formed in 2001. After nearly a year as an independent studio, the developer was acquired by Vivendi Games in January 2006 and placed under Sierra Entertainment. It is currently owned by Activision.^[1][2] It has developed multiple Transformers video games and assisted in the development of select Call of Duty games, as well as Destiny.

High Moon Studios, Inc.

Formerly	Sammy Entertainment Inc. (2001–2002) Sammy Studios, Inc. (2002–2005)
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	April 2001; 24 years ago (2001-04) (as Sammy Entertainment Inc.)
Headquarters	Carlsbad, California , US
Key people	Peter Della Penna (president)
Products	Darkwatch (2005) Transformers series (2010–2012) Deadpool (2013) Destiny series (2014–2017) Call of Duty series (2014–present)
Number of employees	155
Parent	Sammy Corporation (2001–2005) Vivendi Games (2006–2008) Activision (2008–present)
Website	highmoonstudios.com

History

High Moon Studios was formed in April 2001 as a division of the Japanese publisher Sammy, first known as Sammy Entertainment and later renamed Sammy Studios the following year, to develop and publish games in America. After Sammy merged with Sega to form Sega Sammy Holdings on October 1, 2004, Sammy discontinued all video game development in America to focus on its Japanese productions, and planned on closing Sammy Studios as part of this. However on March 3, 2005, Sammy Studios was acquired in a management buyout by a group led by president and CEO John Rowe, and renamed High Moon Studios. Turning to game development only, the studio continued development of games from its time as Sammy Studios, including the Western horror shooter Darkwatch. In January 2006, it was announced that Vivendi Universal Games had acquired the studio. After the merger of Vivendi and Activision, High Moon became a subsidiary of Activision.

Following the completion of Deadpool, Activision laid off 40 full-time employees from High Moon Studios that worked on the project. Activision stated "Activision Publishing consistently works to align its costs with its revenues – this is an ongoing process, with the completion of development on Deadpool, we are taking a reduction in staff at High Moon Studios to better align our development talent against our slate."^[3]

Games developed

Year	Title	Platform(s)
		PS2	PS3	PS4	PS5	Win	Xbox	X360	XOne	XSX
2005	Darkwatch	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
2008	Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
2010	Transformers: War for Cybertron	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
2011	Transformers: Dark of the Moon	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
2012	Transformers: Fall of Cybertron	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
2013	Deadpool	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
2014	Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
2014	Destiny[4]	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
2016	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
2017	Destiny 2	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
2017	Call of Duty: WWII	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
2019	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
2020	Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
2021	Call of Duty: Vanguard	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
2022	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
2023	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
2024	Call of Duty: Black Ops 6	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes