Ubisoft Blue Byte GmbH (Blue Byte until 2017) is a German video game holding company owned by Ubisoft. It was founded in October 1988 by Thomas Hertzler and Lothar Schmitt as a developer and is best known for developing the Anno and The Settlers series. The studio was acquired by Ubisoft in 2001. Related Designs was merged into Blue Byte in 2013, and a third studio in Berlin was established in 2018. Since 2019, Ubisoft Blue Byte acts as the parent company of Ubisoft's three German studios, which became branded as Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Mainz and Ubisoft Berlin. The three studios comprise 695 employees as of August 2024.
History
Foundation and first games (1988–1993)
In 1988, Thomas Hertzler and Lothar Schmitt left Rainbow Arts, a German video game developer, and founded their own, Blue Byte, in October that year. To do so, Hertzler and Schmitt used a starting capital of 10,000 Deutsche Mark borrowed from Hertzler's parents and established an office in the attic of Hertzler's home in Mülheim.
Around 2013, Blue Byte worked with Related Designs on two of its titles including Might & Magic Heroes Online. Related Designs was acquired by Ubisoft in April 2013, from which point on the company would develop projects in tandem with Blue Byte. Related Designs was merged into Blue Byte in June 2014, becoming Blue Byte's second internal studio. In 2014, Blue Byte developed The Settlers: Kingdoms of Anteria. In 2015, the studio worked on Anno 2205. In 2016, the studio worked on Champions of Anteria, replacing The Settlers: Kingdoms of Anteria. The new game was a change from the original The Settlers series, with new gameplay. In 2017, the studio helped on the development for the game Skull & Bones. By late 2017, it had also worked on For Honor and Rainbow Six: Siege. In 2018, the studio announced The Settlers, the eighth game in the series. Blue Byte is also developing Anno 1800. The studio is also working on Beyond Good and Evil 2 together with Ubisoft Montpellier.
In 2017, Blue Byte was rebranded Ubisoft Blue Byte, with a new logo introduced just prior to the Gamescom event in August. A third Blue Byte studio in Berlin was announced in April 2017. The studio was formed out of a building formerly occupied by the Berliner Bank. At the same time, Blue Byte's Düsseldorf and Mainz studios had 230 and 100 employees, respectively. The move primarily aimed at attracting further employees as Ubisoft Blue Byte expected to expand from 520 staff members at the time to 1,000 by 2023. By December 2020, the "Ubisoft Blue Byte" branding was mostly phased out, with the previously stale social media channels deactivated. However, Ubisoft Blue Byte remained the legal parent to its three studios.
Games developed or published
Pro Tennis Tour series
{|class="wikitable"
! Title
! Year
! Developer
! Publisher
|-
| Pro Tennis Tour
| 1989 (Amiga, Atari ST, DOS), 1990 (Amstrad CPC, C64, ZX Spectrum)
| rowspan="3" | Blue Byte
| rowspan="3" | Ubisoft
|-
| Pro Tennis Tour 2
| 1991 (Amiga, Atari ST, DOS)
|-
| Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour
| 1992 (SNES)
|}
Battle Isle series
{|class="wikitable"
! Title
! Year
! Developer
! Publisher
|-
| Battle Isle
| 1991 (Amiga, DOS)
| rowspan="9" | Blue Byte
| rowspan="3" | Blue Byte
|-
| Battle Isle Data Disk I
| 1992 (Amiga, DOS)
|-
| Battle Isle Data Disk II
| 1993 (Amiga, DOS)
|-
| Battle Isle II
| 1994 (DOS)
| Accolade
|-
| Battle Isle II Data Disk I
| 1994 (DOS)
| rowspan="6" | Blue Byte
|-
| Battle Isle III
| 1995 (Windows)
|-
| Incubation: Time Is Running Out
| 1997 (Windows)
|-
| Incubation: The Wilderness Missions
| 1997 (Windows)
|-
| Incubation: Hidden Worlds
| 1998 (Windows)
|-
| Battle Isle: The Andosia War
| 2000 (Windows)
| Cauldron
|}
Settlers series
{|class="wikitable sortable"
! Title
! Year
! Developer
! Publisher
|-
| The Settlers
| 1993 (Amiga), 1994 (DOS)
| rowspan="12" | Blue Byte
| rowspan="3" | Blue Byte
|-
| The Settlers II
| 1996 (DOS), 1997 (MacOS), 2007 (DS)
|-
| The Settlers III
| 1998 (Windows)
|-
| The Settlers IV
| 2001 (Windows)
| Ubi Soft & Gameloft
|-
| The Settlers: Heritage of Kings
| 2004 (Windows)
| rowspan="8" | Ubisoft
|-
| The Settlers II (10th Anniversary)
| 2006 (Windows)
|-
| The Settlers: Rise of an Empire
| 2007 (Windows)
|-
| The Settlers: Rise of Cultures
| 2008 (Windows)
|-
| The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom
| 2010 (Windows)
|-
| The Settlers – My City
| 2010 (Windows)
|-
| The Settlers Online
| 2010 (Browser)
|-
| The Settlers: New Allies
| 2023
|}
Anno series
{|class="wikitable sortable"
! Title
! Year
! Developer
! Publisher
|-
| Anno Online
| 2013 (Browser)
| Blue Byte
| rowspan="6" | Ubisoft
|-
| Anno 1404
| 2009 (Windows)
| rowspan="2" | Blue Byte, Related Designs
|-
| Anno 2070
| 2011 (Windows)
|-
| Anno 2205
| 2015 (Windows)
| rowspan="3" | Blue Byte
|-
| Anno 1800
| 2019 (Windows)
|-
| Anno 117
| 2025 (Windows)
|}
Other
{|class="wikitable sortable"
! Title
! Year
! Developer
! Publisher
|-
| Twinworld
| 1989 (Amiga, Atari ST), 1990 (Acorn Archimedes, C64, ZX Spectrum)
| rowspan="3" | Blue Byte
| rowspan="2" | Ubisoft
|-
| Tom and The Ghost
| 1990 (Amiga, Atari ST, DOS)
|-
| Atomino
| 1990 (DOS), 1991 (Amiga, Atari ST, C64), 1994 (MacOS), 2002 (PalmOS, J2ME)
| Psygnosis
|-
| Apidya
| 1991 (Amiga), 2002 (Windows)
| Kaiko
| rowspan="4" | Play Byte
|-
| Ugh!
| 1992 (Amiga, C64, DOS)
| Egosoft
|-
| History Line: 1914-1918
| 1992 (Amiga, DOS)
| Blue Byte
|-
| Yo! Joe! Beat the Ghosts
| 1993 (Amiga, DOS)
| Scipio
|-
| Albion
| 1995 (DOS), 2015 (Windows)
| rowspan="2" | Blue Byte
| rowspan="7" | Blue Byte
|-
| Dr. Drago's Madcap Chase
| 1995 (Windows)
|-
| Chewy: Esc from F5
| 1995 (DOS), 1997 (Windows)
| New Generation Software
|-
| Archimedean Dynasty
| 1996 (DOS), 2015 (Windows)
| Massive Development
|-
| Extreme Assault
| 1997 (DOS)
| rowspan="15" | Blue Byte
|-
| Game, Net & Match!
| 1998 (Windows)
|-
| Stephen King's F13
| 2000 (Windows, MacOS)
|-
| Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013
| 2012 (Wii U)
| rowspan="12" | Ubisoft
|-
| Silent Hunter Online
| 2013 (Browser)
|-
| Panzer General Online
| 2013 (Browser)
|-
| Might & Magic Heroes Online
| 2014
|-
|Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
|<nowiki>2015 (Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One), 2020 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S)</nowiki>
|-
| Assassin's Creed Identity
| 2014 (iOS), 2016 (Android)
|-
| Champions of Anteria
| 2016 (Windows)
|-
| For Honor
| 2017 (Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)
|-
|South Park: The Fractured but Whole
|2017 (Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch)
|-
|Far Cry 6
|2021 (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Luna)
|-
|Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
|2023 (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S)
|-
|Beyond Good and Evil 2
|TBA
|}
See also
- List of companies in Germany
- List of video game developers