Zen Studios is a Hungarian independent video game developer responsible for the development and release of the eponymous Zen Pinball video game series, as well as several other non-pinball video games. In the mid-2010s, Zen Studios became known as a highly esteemed virtual pinball developer company.
The company is named Zen Studios after its team's belief and creed of achieving Zen in both work and life.
Overview[]
Zen Studios was founded in Budapest in 2003 by a small team of four developers that assisted in the development and porting of acquired games. The firm began its foray into virtual pinball after its founder and longstanding CEO, Zsolt Kigyossy, decided to make the company famous for developing high-quality virtual pinball tables as a fan of pinball himself. This led to the creation of the Zen Pinball series in 2007 with Pinball FX, published by Microsoft and available exclusively on the Xbox 360. Its non-Microsoft counterpart, Zen Pinball, was released for download on the PS3 two years later. Both games' sequels (Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball 2) were initially released on the same consoles three years after their initial releases. A sequel to those installments, Pinball FX3, was released in 2017 for the next generation of consoles; a reboot of the series is planned to release in 2022.
In the early years of the series, Zen Studios created original pinball designs loosely inspired by real tables; with the launch of Pinball FX2 in 2010, Zen increased their design team and began to pursue licensed tables. Pinball FX3 similarly marked the beginning of licensed Williams recreations.
Outside of pinball, Zen Studios is well-known for its 2013 game CastleStorm, involving side-scrolling battle and invasion action against enemy castles. A sequel to the game was announced in 2019. Zen also released a pinball adaptation of the game in 2015 as part of their Iron and Steel pack.