Westwood Studios was once one of the dominant forces in video game development when it came to real-time strategy games. From 1985 to 2003, Westwood developed games that challenged even the illustrious Blizzard for the RTS crown. On Thursday, December 3, the studio will be honored with an Industry Icon Award at The Game Awards 2015.
The announcement was made on the official Game Awards website and in an announcement video shown below. The Industry Icon Award is meant for cornerstones of the industry that have really established a standard that even modern games follow to a degree, yet modern players might not know about or remember
Westwood Studios was responsible for such amazing ventures as the Command and Conquer series as well as adaptations of the Dune books into a long running RTS series of games. They also worked on titles such as the 1997 video game adaptation of Blade Runner and the point-and-click adventure games The Legend of Kyrandia to name a few. The studio was acquired by EA in 1998 and continued to make games until 2003 when it was finally closed following the release of Earth and Beyond. Remnants of the Westwood staff would go on to form Petroglyph Games, which developed Star Wars: Empire at War and more recently Grey Goo.
Co-founders Brett Sperry and Louis Castle will be on hand to accept the Industry Icon Award at the Game Awards 2015.