Gary Liddon, Billy Thomson, and Gareth Noyce founded the company as Ruffian Games in April 2008.

Gary Liddon, Billy Thomson, and Gareth Noyce founded Rockstar Dundee as Ruffian Games in April 2008.

[1] Thomson had led the design for Crackdown at Realtime Worlds, while Liddon and Noyce had worked at Xen Group, a technology provider for the game.

[2][4] By this time, the 15-person team comprised former developers of Crackdown, Fable II, MotoGP, and the Grand Theft Auto series, among them "five or six" who joined from Realtime Worlds.

[2] Microsoft partnered with the studio for Crackdown 2, forgoing Realtime Worlds as it was preoccupied with APB: All Points Bulletin.

[14] Around 2012, the studio created an experimental multiplayer mode for Crytek's Ryse: Son of Rome, although this work was not released with the final game.

[19] User polls conducted for the three projects showed that only 39% of respondents were ready to fund Game of Glens, compared to the 90% for World War Machine and 83% for Moon Hunters.

He had attempted to create a Finnish satellite studio for the company to take advantage of investment opportunities in the country but "it was probably the wrong time to make the move and it didn't quite work out".

[23] Paradox Interactive had penned a deal with Sony that would have made the game on console temporarily exclusive to the PlayStation 4.

However, shortly after releasing a second trailer in mid-2015, Ruffian Games and Paradox Interactive ended their partnership due to creative differences.