Bitmap Brothers
Amiga action game masters
Notable Games
Company History
The Bitmap Brothers was a British video game development studio founded in 1987 by Mike Montgomery, Eric Matthews, and Steve Kelly in Wapping, London, England. The company emerged during the golden age of British game development and quickly established itself as one of the most stylish and technically accomplished studios of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Bitmap Brothers were renowned for their distinctive visual aesthetic, which combined metallic, chrome-like graphics with dark, industrial themes, creating a visual identity that was instantly recognizable and dramatically different from the colorful, cartoonish style that dominated much of the gaming landscape at the time. The studio rose to prominence during the golden age of the Amiga and Atari ST, platforms where European developers thrived.
Their debut title, Xenon (1988) for the Amiga and Atari ST, was a vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up that immediately demonstrated the team's technical prowess with metallic sprites and smooth scrolling. Xenon 2: Megablast (1989) elevated the formula substantially, featuring a licensed soundtrack from Bomb the Bass that was one of the first instances of a major electronic music act contributing to a video game. The game's detailed backgrounds, enormous boss encounters, and power-up shop system made it one of the definitive shooters of the 16-bit computer era. Speedball (1988) and its landmark sequel Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (1990) were perhaps the company's most enduring creations.
Set in a dystopian future, Speedball 2 depicted a violent, handball-like sport played in enclosed arenas where teams of armored athletes competed to score goals and brutalize opponents. The game's perfect balance of accessible pick-up-and-play action with deep tactical nuance made it one of the most played competitive games of the Amiga era, frequently cited as one of the greatest Amiga games ever made, and ported numerous times. The Chaos Engine (1993), known as Soldiers of Fortune in North America, was a top-down steampunk-themed run-and-gun game featuring cooperative two-player gameplay with selectable characters possessing different abilities and an AI-controlled partner system that was a noteworthy achievement for the era. Gods (1991) was a mythologically themed platform game combining combat with switch-based environmental puzzles.
Z (1996) marked the Bitmap Brothers' entry into real-time strategy, featuring a distinctive territorial control mechanic and irreverent personality that distinguished it from Command & Conquer clones. The studio's output slowed significantly in the late 1990s, with World War II Online (2001) as their final major original project. Z: Steel Soldiers followed in 2001 and Speedball 2: Tournament in 2007, but neither recaptured the earlier magic. The Bitmap Brothers effectively ceased active development and is considered defunct.
Behind the Scenes
The Bitmap Brothers represented a particular strain of British game development culture that prized technical excellence, visual sophistication, and a rebellious, rock-and-roll attitude that set the company apart from its contemporaries. Co-founders Mike Montgomery and Eric Matthews cultivated a studio identity that was as much about style and attitude as game design. The technical foundation was built on the Amiga platform, whose hardware-accelerated graphics the team exploited to stunning effect. The metallic, chrome-rendered visual style was achieved through careful use of the Amiga's copper chip and blitter, custom hardware components that allowed sophisticated graphical effects including smooth scrolling, parallax backgrounds, and metallic color cycling.
The team developed custom art pipelines and tools that allowed visual effects rival studios could not match. Music was equally central to their identity. The collaboration with Tim Simenon of Bomb the Bass for Xenon 2 and other prominent electronic musicians demonstrated the company's understanding that audio was integral to the experience. The decision to use licensed electronic music was revolutionary and established a precedent for game-music crossovers.
metallic clangs, satisfying impact sounds, and responsive audio feedback reinforcing gameplay's tactile quality. Speedball 2's development illustrated the team's iterative design process. The original Speedball was successful but limited. For the sequel, the team reimagined the sport completely, adding scoring multipliers on arena walls, comprehensive team management, a league structure, and the brutality mechanic allowing teams to injure opposing players.
Every element was playtested extensively, with the team playing hundreds of competitive matches to ensure varied strategies and possible comebacks. The result remained a staple of Amiga gaming gatherings for over a decade. The Chaos Engine showcased atmospheric world-building through environmental storytelling. detailed brick walls, overgrown industrial machinery, fog-shrouded forests told the story without exposition dialogue.
The two-player cooperative design accommodated both solo play with AI partner and cooperative play. Gods pushed the boundaries of what an action-platformer could achieve visually on the Amiga, while Z's emphasis on fast-paced territorial control offered a refreshing alternative to the resource-gathering-focused RTS games that dominated the genre. The gradual decline of the Bitmap Brothers mirrored the broader contraction of the British home computer gaming scene as the industry shifted toward console platforms. the studio demonstrated that small European teams could produce games exceeding the quality of larger Japanese and American studios, inspiring a generation of British and European developers.
About Bitmap Brothers
Bitmap Brothers is a defunct game development company founded on January 1, 1987 and headquartered in .
Known for creating iconic titles such as Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe, Xenon 2: Megablast, The Chaos Engine and more, Bitmap Brothers has left an indelible mark on the video game industry.