This megathread serves to showcase a list of Canadian game developers. This list will grow over time, and will be better organized as time goes on. Major game titles will be highlighted next to the studio names:
Independent Canadian Game Developers:
Edmonton:
Halifax:
Hamilton:
Kitchener:
London:
Montreal:
- Canari Games
- Chasing Rats Games
- Clever Endeavour Games - Ultimate Chicken Horse
- Clever Plays
- Kitfox Games
- KO_OP
- Lowbirth Games
- Lucid Dreams Studio
- ManaVoid
- Norsfell
- Paper Cult Games
- Red Barrels - Outlast Franchise
- Trebuchet Studio
- Tribute Games
- Two Tiny Dice
- Unreliable Narrators
Ottawa:
- Hot Sauce Bread Studios (link leads to website of their game, Haste)
Quebec City:
Regina:
St. Catharines:
Saskatoon:
- Foolish Mortals (http website)
Toronto:
- 13AM Games
- BancyCo
- Behold Studios - founded in Brazil, based in Toronto since 2019
- Capybara Games
- Cococucumber
- Drinkbox Studios - Guacamelee Franchise
- HitGrab Game Labs
- Kitten Cup Studio
- Komi Games
- Mighty Yell
- Quill Game Studios
- Siege Camp
- Spooky Squid Games
- Torn Banner Studios
Vancouver:
- Blackbird Interactive
- Brace Yourself Games
- Daniel Mullins Games
- Extremely OK Games - Celeste
- Funselektor
- Hinterland Games
- Metanaut
- Northway Games
- Red Hook Studios - Subsidiary of Behaviour Interactive
- Redstone Interactive - links to website for their game, Beyond The Wire
- Relic Entertainment - Age of Empires, Company of Heroes
Victoria:
Waterloo:
- Odyssey Interactive - Omega Strikers
Multiple Locations in Canada:
- Behaviour Interactive - Dead By Daylight
- Bloom Digital Media (Peterborough and Toronto)
- Phantom Compass (Toronto, St. Catharines, Barrie)
- Red Meat Games (Cambridge and Halifax)
- Studio MDHR (Oakville and Regina) - Cuphead
Somewhere in Canada:
- Love Conquers All Games
- Red Nexus Games (BC)
- Studio Frequence - Site now down, may move to Defunct
Individual Canadian Game Developers:
Game Studios based in both Canada and the U.S.:
- Other Ocean - Partially based in Emeryville, California
Canadian Game Developers Owned by American Companies:
- BioWare - Subsidiary of Electronic Arts
- The Coalition - Division of Xbox Game Studios
- Compulsion Games - Subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios
- Haven Studios - Subsidiary of PlayStation Studios
- Invoke Studios - Subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro
- Motive Studio - Subsidiary of Electronic Arts
Canadian Game Developers Owned by Other Foreign Companies:
- Bad Brain Game Studios - Subsidiary of NetEase Games (China)
- Big Blue Bubble - Subsidiary of Enad Global 7 (Sweden)
- Digital Extremes - Subsidary of Leyou (China)
- Eidos-Montréal - Subsidiary of Embracer Group (Sweden)
- Next Level Games - Subsidiary of Nintendo (Japan)
- SkyBox Labs -Subsidiary of NetEase Games (China)
Game Developers with Offices in Canada:
- Amazon Games
- CD Projeckt
- Gearbox Software - American company
- Rockstar Games - American company, office in Toronto, former office in Vancouver
- Ubisoft
- Warner Bros. Games - American company
Inactive Canadian Game Developers:
- Rocketship Park - Inactive since 2022
Defunct Canadian Game Developers:
- Alpha Dog Games - Shuttered 2024, Subsidiary of Zenimax Media and Xbox Game Studios
- Pseudo Interactive - Shuttered 2008, revived briefly in 2021
- Stirling Games - site down, site for only developed game down, socials inactive since 2021
- Tiny Titan Studios - Website down, socials inactive since 2021, assuming defunct
Check out https://www.ottawagames.info/
It’s an Ottawa website run by my friend’s Matt and Paige, and they chronicle all of our community’s games and developers.
It should have all the links you need.
Awesome! Thanks for the help!
I’ll be sure to look through and take a look at what all’s there.
I also hate to link to reddit now, but months ago there was a reddit post with a big list of Canadian devs and games.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyCanadian/comments/1iku9sm/canadian_game_designers_to_support/
Some more notes
Cuphead - The main team is Toronto based, but all the coders were here in Ottawa. Some of which I went to school with. https://store.steampowered.com/app/268910/Cuphead/
Tunic - I believe they are all Canadian. At least one of the dev’s is a local to Ottawa. https://tunicgame.com/
Spring Falls - By Eric. I remember seeing the early demo’s of this at our local game dev event. https://www.springfallsgame.com/
Gataela - By Paige who is really nice. She helps curate the first link I sent. https://www.gataela.com/
Spectrum Break - A game I released solo before joining Skypyre. https://spectrumbreak.com/
We’ve had a few phone app game companies spring up around Ottawa but I honestly have no idea if they survived the pandemic. I haven’t seen Magmic in a long time and I recall them not doing too well.
I’m also pretty sure Balatro is Canadian.
I believe the Momodora series is based in Toronto, as is the developer who made Mount Your Friends but you would have to verifiy both.
Another big name are the developers are Warframe. They are based here in Canada.
King of the Hat was by an indie team from somewhere in Ontario. It’s too bad I haven’t had the chance to see them at an event in a while. I hope they’re doing well. https://kingofthehat.com/
We have a handful of local meetups so everyone tends to know each other.
I am part of Skypyre Studios, as is Matt who is one of the 2 people running the website. We’re 10 friends who release games together.
The largest Studio is SnowedIn. They only have 1 game listed but they do a lot of contract work for studios like Ubisoft. Last I checked they had 50+ employees.
The most recognizable is Steelcrate games who made Don’t Talk and Nobody Explodes for VR headsets… originally at a local college game jam.
Another cool indie Studio is Breakfall. Who have 3-4 game’s listed. They’re currently making their own engine.
And there are numerous local indie’s who have made a game solo.