Founded in May 1988 by former Gremlin Graphics employees, it originally bore the name Megabrite until rebranding as Core Design in October the same year.

Based in the city of Derby, England, Core Design was founded in 1988 by Chris Shrigley, Andy Green, Rob Toone, Terry Lloyd, Simon Phipps, Dave Pridmore, Jeremy Heath-Smith, Kevin Norburn and Greg Holmes.

[3] In September 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment's U.S. arm, SCEA, signed an agreement with Eidos[4][5] to make the sequel exclusive to the PlayStation console.

[6] This prompted the Core Design management team, Jeremy Heath-Smith along with his brother Adrian, to leave the company and establish a new one, Circle Studio.

"[8] The remaining staff at Core Design worked on a puzzle game, Smart Bomb, for the PlayStation Portable, released in summer 2005.