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Obituary: 10 studios that no longer exist

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The gaming industry changes dramatically from year to year. New studios appear every day, but they also die. Largely because of this, today's games are not like those that were before. Not so long ago, Telltale Games, like a phoenix, rose from its ashes to continue working. We have collected for you 10 studios that have died, and although their games were popular, they, alas, were not lucky to return as well as Talltale.

LucasArts

Since its inception, LucasArts has had one specific goal - to sell Star Wars in the video game market. And you know what? It was great, because more than one generation of gamers grew up in Star Wars games, spending dozens of hours at the Jedi school or fighting in space on ships. After the arrival of Tim Schafer, who joined the team eight years later, the studio expanded its potential and began to release excellent quests. Thanks to LucasArts, we have Sam and Max Hit the road, Grimm Fandango and Monkey IslandImage

Alas, in 2013, a famous eared rat bought the studio, signed a contract to release Star Wars games with EA and closed the studio, simultaneously killing their latest ambitious project Star Wars 1313.

Pandemic

Despite the presence of LucasArts, Pandemic is responsible for Star Wars Battlefront. In addition, Destroy All Humans and The Saboteur also came out from under their hand. These were very cool games. In 2009, the studio, together with Bioware, became part of EA. And if for the creators of Mass Effect everything was painless, then Pandemic was closed and 228 employees lost their jobs.

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Today, most of its former developers work for Respawn Entertainment and Infinity Ward.

Westwood studios

First of all, Westwood studios is known to oldfags, who were the first to experience the full power of the RTS genre, starting in 1987. Real-time strategy once ruled the industry and was a trend in the 90s, and Westwood studios asked it. Initially, they were engaged in porting games from 8-bit systems to 16-bit ones. After the studio accumulated resources, increased the staff, she began to create her own projects. So their first game was the RPG Mars Saga. She later hit the jackpot with a game licensed by Dungeons and Dragons. During its existence, Westwood studios managed to release the cult series Command & Conquer, Blade Runner, Dune II, Dune 2000.

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In 1998 it was sold to EA and it was the beginning of the end. The bulk of the staff left it, and in 2003 the evil corporation completely abolished the studio.

Troika Games

The creators of such cult RPGs as Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, and Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines have always approached their projects with a dose of romanticism, trying to create an atmospheric and detailed lore in their games. This approach is not surprising given the fact that the studio was created by natives of Interplay who were responsible for the creation of the first two parts of Fallout: Tim Kane, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson.

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Alas, the studio has always had bad luck with publishers and that Sierra, that Activision put pressure on it, setting insane deadlines [read about this separately in our materials about the cut content of Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines and the history of the game creation], forcing tons of content to be cut out.

Bloodlines' financial failure, which happened due to the publisher's decision to compete with Half Life 2, did not recover and the studio was closed.

MidWay

Once MidWay were the kings of arcade games back in 1973. This continued until 2001, when the company began to buy up indie studios to act as a publisher for them. They focused on home console games and took in Mortal Kombat, Spy Hunter and The Suffering under their wings.

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In the mid-2000s, they began to suffer financial losses, and by 2009 they had sold almost all of their assets to Warner Bros. The studio is still in the process of closing, slowly selling its property. The problem was that the company simply couldn't adapt to the new post-arcade era like Sega or Capcom did.

Visceral games

The studio behind Godfather and Dante's Inferno is best known, of course, for the Dead Space series. Visceral games is an example of a studio that was able to create games based on films without releasing a frank piece of feces. EA Games was able to put together an amazing team, which over time was engaged in their own creativity, but was absorbed in the cruel corporate world.

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After the phenomenally successful Dead Space, EA was commissioned to create Battlefield Hardline, and later hired screenwriter Amy Hanning to write a pirate-setting game script for Visceral games to develop. After the announcement of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, it was decided to move the concept to the Star Wars setting. We had to play the role of criminals from a galaxy far, far away, who were preparing to rob.

Alas, in 2017 EA decided to close this project, and with it the studio.

Black Isle Studios

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Black Isle Studios' history is sad, but it has a happy ending. In the 90s, a group of enthusiasts gathered who decided to create the most brutal RPG in the original setting, which would become a cult. This is how Fallout was born. After the second part, the studio had a disagreement with the publisher, and it broke up. Fortunately, almost all the key personalities involved in the creation of the two original games were absorbed by different studios, and today we have projects such as Fallout New Vegas, the Pillars of Eternity series, Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and the upcoming The Outer Worlds and Dying Light 2.

Neversoft

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Since its inception in 1997, the studio has had financial problems that it was able to overcome thanks to an offer from Activision to make the Apocalypses game. The studio later took on the creation of the first skateboarder simulator, initiating the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. Neversoft has released 9 games in this series, as well as the western Gun.

The beginning of the end came when the publisher bought the rights to Guitar Hero and chose Neversoft as the developer. After 8 successful games, Activision transferred the franchise to another studio, laying off half of Neversoft's staff.

Later in 2014, the rest of the team was assigned to Infinity Ward. The remaining staff made a stuffed eye, the studio's symbol, and symbolically burned it goodbye.

Lionhead Studios

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This studio disappeared for two reasons: its head, Peter Moulinho, also known as Mr. "trees growing in real time", who loved to lie in the presentations of his games and because of the purchase of Microsoft. After the successful Black and White and the first Fable, the studio of the bull was bought by Mikromyagkie in order to create exclusives for the Xbox 360. Soon Moulinho left Lionhead, and she began her journey into the grave of failed games.

It was closed in 2016 without releasing a funny fake called Fable Legends.

Team Bondi

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Team Bondi became famous for only one major project, the detective action LA Noire. Alas, after the release, it became known that the project was born in terrible crunches, and did not justify itself financially. The studio's assets have already been bought by another company, and the rights to their game have completely passed into the hands of Rockstar Games. Very sorry. The studio had great potential, and most importantly, it was not afraid to experiment, thanks to which it added facial animation to the game.

These are not all of the dead studios, but we regret their loss the most.

The Topic of Article: Obituary: 10 studios that no longer exist.
Author: Jake Pinkman


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