Notable works include the film The Lawnmower Man and the music video for Peter Gabriel's song "Kiss That Frog".

Angel Studios began working in the video game industry during the 1990s, creating cutscenes for Ed Annunziata's Ecco: The Tides of Time (1994) and Mr. Bones (1996).

Rockstar Games was impressed with the studio's work on Midtown Madness and offered a long-term partnership in 1999, which resulted in the creation of the Midnight Club and Smuggler's Run series.

It collaborated with other Rockstar Games studios on Max Payne 3 (2012), Grand Theft Auto V (2013), and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018).

[4][6] In 1984, Angel moved with his wife and two children from Chicago to San Diego because he had friends and relatives there, and because the Spanish-language street names and proximity to the Spanish-speaking Mexico made him feel at home.

[4] The company's first project was an educational video for the University of California, San Diego, followed by commercials for Nintendo, Polaroid Corporation, Asiana Airlines, and Cobra Golf, among others.

[2] Studio employees said that Angel treated them like family: he paid them well, gave them plenty of vacation time, and occasionally shared a bottle of Patrón-brand tequila on Friday afternoons, an event he called "Sippy Wippy".

[2][13] Successes came with the computer-generated imagery and visual effects in the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man and the music video for Peter Gabriel's song "Kiss That Frog".

[19] The "Kiss That Frog" music video was part of a simulator ride exhibited in an 18-seat mobile theater, the Mind Blender, which went on tour in 1993.

[2][22] For The Enertopia Symphony, a 13-minute short film that was shown at the Electric Energy Pavilion at Expo '93, the studio produced a six-and-a-half-minute stereoscopic animation from live-action 3D photography directed by Peter Anderson.

Limber cited Angel's business decisions as the biggest factor in the company's survival of the dot-com bubble, which severely impacted the San Diego-area multimedia industry.

[27] In late 1997, Angel Studios was contracted to develop a port of Capcom's PlayStation game Resident Evil 2 for the Nintendo 64.

[31] Matt Casamassina of IGN opined the port marked the studio as fit to develop for Nintendo's recently announced Project Dolphin console, which became the GameCube.

[35] The studio contributed to an adventure ride called Virtual Jungle Cruise, which debuted at the June 1998 opening of the first DisneyQuest interactive theme park in Orlando, Florida.

[36] Interactive Light published Angel Studios's beat 'em up-style arcade video game Savage Quest in 1999.

[39] Fred Marcus, a designer and programmer on the project, stated the studio's impressive physics demos were key to its publishing contracts.

[41] The studio continued working with Microsoft on a game involving a virtual girlfriend, planned as an Xbox launch title called XGirl.

[10] Sky Pirates VR, a pirate-themed attraction based on Steven Spielberg's "vertical reality" system, was exhibited in GameWorks theme parks.

"[48] Daily Radar ranked Angel Studios fourth on its 2001 list of the five best developers for Sony platforms, citing the strength of Midnight Club: Street Racing and the first Smuggler's Run game on the PlayStation 2.

Dan Houser noted Red Dead Revolver, which he described as "this cowboy game that looked very good", caught the review team's attention despite being unplayable.

[2] In 2003, Rockstar San Diego began developing Agent, an open-world stealth game for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, under the leadership of the producer Luis Gigliotti.

[62] When police detained artists for their photography in both locations, the situation in D.C. was quickly resolved while the one in Cairo took significantly more time, and the development continued once both teams had returned.

[12][65] The engine was introduced with Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis, which was also developed by the studio and released for the Xbox 360 and Wii in 2006.

[69] The studio opened two paid internship positions for Entertainment Technology Center students in December 2005 and soon began recruiting employees to produce next-generation games.

[70][71] In August 2006, two former Rockstar San Diego 3D artists—Terri-Kim Chuckry and Garrett Flynn—filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of over 100 ex-employees, claiming unpaid overtime compensation.

[79][80] The International Game Developers Association described the alleged working conditions as "deceptive, exploitative, and ultimately harmful".

[81] In January 2010, it was reported that the company management had gradually laid off employees working on the Midnight Club series and outsourced its development.

Speaking to investors, Take-Two's chief executive officer, Strauss Zelnick, announced that the game would become one of the company's strategic "permanent franchises".

[101] In July 2019, Martin left the company, later joining the Chinese conglomerate Tencent and opening the subsidiary studio Lightspeed LA.

[103][104] In September 2021, Rockstar Games leased the entirety of the Pacific View Corporate Center in Carlsbad—82,163 square feet (7,633.2 m2)—from Drawbridge Realty.