Sega Studios San Francisco

The company was hired by LucasArts to port Star Wars: Starfighter to the Xbox in 2001. The game was titled Star Wars: Starfighter: Special Edition and featured new content, new playable ships, and added detail to the levels. This was followed up with Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter for Xbox which featured even more Secret Level generated content, including additional game modes, and a new Coruscant game level.

Secret Level's first original game was

The company signed up to do America's Army: Rise of a Soldier in early 2004 for Ubisoft. It was an Xbox version of the tactical first-person shooter America's Army, released by the U.S. Army in 2002 as a communications and recruiting tool. The new game added a story and levels to appeal more broadly to a console audience. The game also included a new single player mode based on Major Jason Amerine's experiences in Afghanistan in the year 2001. The company used the game as an opportunity to grow its game design department significantly. Secret Level was unable to get an acceptable frame rate for the PS2 version of the game and that release was canceled in late 2005.

The company took on a number of work for hire projects over the years (see below) which tasked either the art or engineering departments. During the period 2004-2006 there were over half a dozen small projects.

Secret Level joined the Khronos Group in May 2004.^[5]

The company completed a port of Karaoke Revolution to the Xbox for Konami in late 2004. It was the first karaoke video game for the Xbox to include a vocal analyzer that measures the pitch and rhythm of a player's voice. It received IGN Editor's Choice Award.^[6]

In September 2004, Secret Level moved from its long time San Francisco offices in the

Secret Level became Ageia's first

Secret Level began work on Golden Axe in summer 2005 for Sega and rapidly made progress with development of both the game and a new game engine. Sega was so impressed it decided to acquire the studio.

Sega buyout

On April 3, 2006, Secret Level, Inc. was acquired by Sega,^[8] for $15 million.^[9] Sega had recently started acquiring other studios in an effort to build more western appeal, and this was its first North American purchase. VP Operations Angus Chassels left Secret Level after the buyout to pursue other opportunities. Chassels is currently the first full-time Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Colorado.^[10]

After the acquisition, Secret Level was grown to a large, nearly 200 person studio and became Sega Studios San Francisco. The company developed Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Golden Axe: Beast Rider for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. This required that the studio grow quickly, nearly doubling its size in less than a year. This certainly affected the quality of the final products as hiring, particularly of key positions, was slower than needed.

Founders Jeremy Gordon and