Depressing. Very Depressing.

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/fallout3/...85243.html

We all saw it coming... but still, it hurts. Bad. I know that I'd been expecting bad things... but this goes beyond what even I was expecting.


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Interplay shuts down Black Isle Studios


After months of bad omens, the end has finally come for the veteran RPG developer.

It looks like role-playing gamers will have a boulder of coal stuffed in their holiday stockings this year, as GameSpot has received reliable reports that Interplay has shut down Black Isle Studios.



While nothing has been confirmed by official sources as of press time, Damien "Puuk" Foletto, a member of BIS' art department, broke the news on the Interplay forums late this afternoon. "Today was my last day at the (former) BIS, as it was for my whole team," he said. To date, Foletto's posts have been one of the most reliable sources of news on the development of Fallout 3 (aka Van Buren) including the departure of his former co-worker J.E. Sawyer.

Black Isle's closure is a sad end for the once-great developer. BIS had a hand in some of the most acclaimed PC RPGs of the late 1990s, including the Fallout and Baldur's Gate series. Recently, though, the studio fell on hard times. Its forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons title, code-named "Jefferson," was canned earlier this year, reportedly a casualty of a legal tangle with D&D rights-holders Wizards of the Coast. A host of top-quality talent has fled the studio, including legendary producer Feargus Urqhart.

However, it looks like the financial woes of BIS' parent Interplay finally did the developer in. Interplay has lost over $20 million so far this year. Its two main holiday releases, the console RPGs Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (which was developed by BIS), were pushed back to next January as a result of another legal dispute, this time with distributor VU Games. Interplay's refocusing on console games may have also been a factor in the decision to shutter its more PC-centric subsidiary.

Regardless of the reasons, the closure of BIS will hit many gamers hard. Foletto's final post seemed particularly depressing. "I don't know where I'll end up," he said, "but [people should] know that we were all avid gamers and wanted to make the PC games that not only we wanted to play, but also the fans."

This essentially means Interplay is no more. Black Isle was nearly all of Interplay that was left. There might be a team or two there who weren't Black Isle, but virtually all of their games in recent years were BIS... Haven is the only recent exception I can think of. So Interplay isn't 100% dead -- they still have a few mediocre console development teams left.

(hint: that means they're dead)

Interplay... they've never been a consistently good developer, but their heights have been very, very high. Seeing their slow and inevitable decline over the past couple of years has been very painful... their slide from a major publisher with 15 games a year to one struggling to release two, from successful to bankruptcy, seeing it bought by a multinational company (Titus), seeing its founder leave, seeing the endless lawsuits, losing the Star Trek liscence, losing the Dungeons & Dragons liscence... seeing the leader of BIS leave... and now seeing the one bright light left in the building (really, the only part of the company that matters... oh, sure, they have a console team somewhere, but has Interplay ever been known for great console games?)

It's not RIP yet... but it either will be soon, or we won't care. Without BIS Interplay is nothing. Maybe a publisher for a game or two like Lionheart and developer of the occasional mediocre console game... what a sad and depressing fate for a company with as great a resume of games as Interplay. (once you ignore the bad and mediocre games, which I have no problem in doing...)

BIS... one of the best RPG developers ever. I mean...

Since 1997... one of the best runs of RPGs of all time. Fallout. Fallout 2. Planescape: Torment. Icewind Dale. Icewind Dale II. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. And significant help in making Bioware's Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II.

Their final legacy will be Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance II... which won't be out for a few months but I'm pretty sure is finished. (Fallout: Blades of Steel wasn't by BIS). (for a Nintendo-related note, neither of those games are coming for Cube, just X-Box and PS2.)

Honestly, the most amazing thing here is that the people at BIS managed to focus on making games at all in the last two-plus years... they didn't finish one, due to losing the D&D liscence and then this, but still... shows something for them. Poor guys... I hope they go work with Fearqus Urquhart or JE Sawyer and make some new games on the level of what they have done before... :( :(

(yes, yes, I know I'm rambling badly... but this just stinks so bad...)

Oh yeah, Interplay sold the extremely-long-in-development (think over five years) Galleon to SC-i and the game is now X-Box only, and will come out next spring.

So that leaves what left that Interplay is making... uhh... BGDA2, BIS's last game, FO: BOS, the bad-looking action-RPGish game... and uh... nothing else...

Interplay is a company built on PC-style RPGs, as well as some of every other genre... they had great adventure games (such as The Last Express), action games (Descent), myriad RPGs, strategy games (such as Conquest of a New World), platformers (like Blizz's Lost Vikings)... so many... and now the company is about as living and worth paying attention to as Sierra's internal development teams. Yeah, they have made plenty of console games before, and published good ones, too... but their greatest strength has always been their Computer RPGs, by far. From the early '90s with things like Dragon Wars to recent ones like Icewind Dale II... and they just threw that all away and trashed their one great remaining team.

"Interplay is console only".

This stinks.

They should change their slogan from "By Gamers, For Gamers" to "By Money-grubbers, For Stupid Console Masses"...


Now all anyone who has ever liked their games can do is look to Obsidian (the name of the studio started by the previous round of people who left Interplay) and hope that they can become a replacement for what is now gone.

Here's to hoping that someone, sometime, will match the sheer brilliance of Planescape Torment. Interplay won't.

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(I'd use more smilies, but it seems disrespectful...)

Now you've got to excuse me, I've got to go hit my head on the wall several times...

[Dark Jaguar]

I'll only add that during the SNES era, one of Interplay's better titles was made that I happened to play. Lord of the Rings (Fellowship of the Ring) was a very fun Zelda-ish title, only lacking in that it oddly enough used a password system instead of a save system (very annoying). The game was one of the better looking and sounding SNES games. Didn't do too well though, because I think at the time LOTR just wasn't popular enough to draw a crowd to it (which would be why they never finished the trilogy). Still, a very good game. Indeed, that company seems to have an odd habit of making garbage and sometimes gold.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, if they could have just not made the garbage they'd be great... :D

Still, as I said, their good ones were frequently so good that you forgot about the bad ones.

I forgot a few that should be mentioned... primarially the Star Trek adventure games (Judgement Day, 25th Anniversary, etc...). They also published Planet Moon's first game, Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

A couple years ago I got the Interplay 15th Anniversary Collection -- 15 games for about $20 for Interplay's 15th Anniversary. It has some really good ones -- Conquest of the New World Gold, Fallout, Descent, Castles II, Dragon Wars, Shattered Steel -- some good/midrange -- M.A.X., Norse By Norsewest (Lost Vikings 2), Virtual Pool, Battle Chest, Stonekeep -- and some not as good (though still okay) -- Redneck Rampage, Beat the House, Solitare Deluxe, Whiplash.

Good cross-section of Interplay games (well, except for the Star Trek ones...). Worth the money. :)

Still, my list of Interplay's best games would read like a list of Black Isle/Bioware games -- Torment, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, Fallout, and Fallout 2 are all right near the top of the list...

Oh, I never played that LOTR game. Heard of it, but didn't play it... and yes, it didn't get sequels because at that point LOTR hadn't got resurrected yet.

Giants brings up one more thing... the influence they have had on some of today's top developers. They published Blizzard in their early console games, helping them get up and running. And Bioware in their early times, helping them resurrect the RPG genre with Baldur's Gate. And Planet Moon with Giants... that company's not on that level yet of course, but Giants was great and their new game published by Lucasarts (Armed & Dangerous) looks great. And now of course Obsidian, founded by their castoffs...

Here's one.

http://www.inxile-entertainment.com (Brian Fargo, founder of Interplay,'s new company)

http://www.obsidianent.com/ (Feargus Urquhart)

[Great Rumbler]

*A brief montage of in-game clips is shown from Out of This World, Flashback, Normality, Fallout, and Giants: Citizen Kabuto*

[A Black Falcon]

Remember our 'best pc games ever' thread, and how Interplay was right near the top in number of games?

I guess Interplay now has to join Sierra in my 'they used to be among the best developers ever' list.

[alien space marine]

Interplay startrek offering had good gems and bad lumps of shit.

But Baldurs Gate is a loss , That game is almost as known as Diablo.

Its to bad Interplay had alot of history.

[A Black Falcon]

Baldur's Gate *Dark Alliance* is a mediocre Diablo knockoff, but Baldur's Gate is a brilliant hardcore PC RPG series...

And yes, Interplay did make a lot of bad Star Trek games. The good ones were the early adventure games and the two starship strategy games they published that I can't remember the name of (Starfleet Command?). The rest, like Starfleet Academy, the abysmal Klingon FPS, etc. mostly stunk.

But still... they made some great Star Trek adventure games. :) And didn't I say that they have a long history of publishing some pretty lousy games, but that their good ones are good enough for me to forgive them of it?

[Great Rumbler]

It seems like more and more small companies are going bankrupt or getting swallowed up by gigantic gaming conglomerates.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, the multinationals are really taking over the industry... I know that over the years lots of small companies have gone out of business, and plenty more killed by bigger fish, but it still hurts each time...

Sure, in many of the cases the developers go elsewhere and continue making good games, but it's just not the same...

[OB1]

This sucks. I was hoping to see a 3D Fallout someday.

[A Black Falcon]

When they were canned they were working on Fallout 3, after having to stop development of Baldur's Gate III (using the name for sales reasons, but it would have had a new location in the Forgotten Realms and new characters, etc) because Interplay couldn't hold on to their D&D liscence for PC games after Atari bought the rights to the liscence.

[A Black Falcon]

http://forums.interplay.com/viewtopic.php?t=35771

Read the first post. Makes complete sense to me, and I agree...

Oh fine. You're all lazy.

"Being a member of the team I can tell you what they were thinking. The new head honcho doesn't like PC games and has even stated that in the past. Its pretty obvious he was responsible for the death of BIS. There was alot of bad feelings between BIS and the rest of the company since BIS actually produced titles on a regular basis instead of dicking around like everyone else. It was all politics.

So now they have bet the future of the company on 2 unproven projects. Fallout BOS2 (the first hasn't shipped and everyone knows its going to tank) and a console game based on the Exalted license. So instead of supporting the team working on Fallout 3 which has a proven record and was FAR along in development, they rest the future on the unknown.

You can be sure Interplay will sell the Fallout license to someone else. They've made short-sighted quick money decisions in the past (Hunter license is an example). They figure they can sell it off for a quick buck and save all the development money while losing any long term profit. Brilliant.

They will survive for awhile since Vivendi is stupid enough to keep giving them money. Also when BGDA2 ships that will give them a big stack of money so they will screw around all next year on these dead end titles until the money finally dries up and they go under. They might survive until the end of next year if they don't lose all of development. No one trusts them now so everyone still there is actively searching for jobs."

BTW, InXile is making that new Bard's Tale game that has been mentioned before (after obtaining the liscence to the classic Interplay RPG series "The Bard's Tale"), and Obsidian has a a working agreement with Bioware (makes sense, since it's got like 15 people from Black Isle there and Bioware and Black Isle worked together on the BG games for at least five years...) and might be doing KOTOR 2.

I hope that those two Interplay-successors get the (best of) this new talent that was laid off...

Oh OB1, there is "good" news there -- as makes sense, Interplay will likely sell off Fallout at some time in the next year or two, or at least liscence it out to some other company for PC games. If that goes to a decent company, we may even get a new Fallout game... but it won't be quite the same as Fallout 3.

It's really tragic. Not just becaus BIS died, but because Fallout 3 was WELL into development and sounded like it was great... and if they were part of a more healthy company they'd also have the very cool sounding Baldur's Gate III... two games that sound so awesome, dead forever... :(

[A Black Falcon]

The one and only Fallout 3 screenshot.

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=45138

Don't know if I want to see any more of these, it's too painful... it looks like Fallout, done in a 3d style that looks 2d.

I've always known that Titus is one of the worst gaming companies in existance, this just helps make that more clear.

[A Black Falcon]

Depressing, but inevitable sometime? Nah. Oh, sure, Interplay is in big trouble, but BIS didn't need to die.

Just read this. And get angry at the Titus execs. I know I sure am now...

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/446/446382p1.html

December 16, 2003 - "Black Isle Studios is dead." So says a source formerly employed by the developer. We've already brought you the initial details based on a post on the Interplay forum, but we've now confirmed that Black Isle now exists only as a brand under the Interplay umbrella. Digital Mayhem, the other development division within Interplay, has also "been dissolved and combined under Interplay Production," according to our source.

The dissolution was prompted by an apparent political "ass-kissing battle" within the separate divisions of Interplay. Black Isle Studios' director quit in frustration, leaving Black Isle unofficially under the management of Digital Mayhem's director. Citing disharmony with the new management, Black Isle Studios appealed to Interplay to adopt a more hands-off approach.

Interplay agreed and the team continued work on Baldur's Gate 3. The title was cancelled after management failed to retain the license for the D&D system, so Black Isle decided to focus development exclusively on Fallout 3. The design was finished, the engine was written, and the work on the maps had begun when Interplay asked for a playable demo of the game.

By Black Isle's account, the demo as delivered was 95% done, including all game functionality but only one finished demo level. (Work on the rest of the levels was approximately halfway complete; all that remained to be done was to populate and script the maps.) The next day Interplay began laying off people at Digital Mayhem. Since the Fallout demo was so polished, employees at Black Isle felt (relatively) secure.

Two weeks later, all but two members of the Fallout team were laid off and the project was cancelled. Interplay apparently believed the game could not be finished by 2004. Interestingly, the two members of the team not laid off were those who were previously working for the head of Digital Mayhem on a separate console title prior to moving to Black Isle Studios.

The financial outlook for Interplay is still a bit grim. Millions of dollars in debt with less than a million in the bank, Interplay's decision to cancel the nearly complete (by Black Isle's estimation) Fallout 3 was followed by a green light for the console games Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 (a sequel for a game that hasn't even shipped yet) and Exalted (which doesn't yet have an engine).

Interplay still owns the Black Isle Studios brand and employees were told, "Interplay will continue to produce titles. If we feel that a title is worth of the Black Isle Studios' name then it will be released under that brand." Though you may still see new games with Black Isle on the box, given the closing of the studio, no such titles will have actually been developed by Black Isle. Ditto for Digital Mayhem. At this point, Interplay also still owns the Fallout franchise but, given the company's financial outlook, it's doubtful they'll maintain it if prospective buyers start calling.

We'll bring you more details as they surface.

Losing BIS hurts real bad, but at least they have created some good developers that still exist (Troika, Obsidian... and to a lesser extent InXile...)... what hurts the most is looking at Fallout 3 and how far along it was and how we'll never see it. Man, is that awful... and BG3 too of course but that one wasn't as far along.