The game engine known as Euphoria, utilized in both Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, was created by a company called NaturalMotion. The development arm of NaturalMotion, known as NaturalMotion Games, took on the task of developing Star Wars: Hunters.
Located in Oxford, NaturalMotion received funding in September of 2001 through financial backing from Oxford University. The company gained recognition for its animation engines, including Endorphin, Morpheme, and Euphoria, which were designed for use in the creation of both movies and video games.
NaturalMotion engineered technologies that simulated the biomechanical aspects (nervous system and musculature) of a CGI character, enabling them to react in a uniquely realistic manner, without the need for animators to manually script each movement. While Endorphin found its application in pre-rendered CGI scenes for movies, Euphoria was specifically designed to operate in real-time. DMS Behaviors, which are A.I. motion controllers, govern the character's "muscles" based on sensory input. Nick Pavis from LucasArts, while conducting research into methods for enhancing the autonomy and realism of video game sprites, investigated NaturalMotion in late 2004. NaturalMotion then partnered with Pavis and Steve Dykes to integrate an early iteration of Euphoria into a real-time environment, which was subsequently licensed for the development of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and its sequel, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.
On November 18, 2010, the announcement was made that NaturalMotion Games, a new division, was established to concentrate on the creation and release of video games.
In August of 2012, the company acquired BossAlien. Subsequently, Zynga acquired NaturalMotion itself in February of 2014 for a sum of 527 million dollars. On August 18, 2018, Disney and Zynga entered into a multi-year agreement to develop a new Star Wars mobile game, with an option for a second game. NaturalMotion was assigned the responsibility of overseeing the development of future Star Wars games. The agreement also stipulated that Zynga would assume operational control of Disney's Star Wars: Commander, with NaturalMotion also taking on responsibilities for live services.
On February 17, 2021, the title of the game being developed at NaturalMotion, along with its subsidiaries BossAlien and another unnamed studio in Austin, was revealed to be Star Wars: Hunters.