|
Of the still active ones I'd go with:
Paradox (Europa Universalis and other grand strategy games)
Ascaron (fun trading games in Patrician and Port Royale series, but they all tend to play the same way)
Piranha Bytes (Gothic Series)
Bethesda (Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and Daggerfall were both great, even if the latter hasnt aged well)
Historically I'd say Microprose Labs back around 1990 with Civ, Railroad Tycoon, Darklands, Sword of the Samurai, Pirates, Colonization and countless flightsims. The sheer number of quality titles over a long period was unparallelled in history, though many of these were due to a few truly great minds (Sid Meier is the most well known).
Magnetic Fields who developed light car games (Supercars and Lotus series) for the Amiga were also great.
Some of those may be publishers rather than dev teams (MPS labs?) but they are nonetheless the labels I associate with games of a consistently high quality.
|