Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Video games |
Founded | 2007Denver, Colorado, US | in
Founders |
|
Headquarters | , US |
Number of locations | 3 offices (2020) |
Key people | |
Number of employees | 78 (2019) |
Website | illfonic |
IllFonic, LLC is an American video game developer based in Golden, Colorado, with further offices in Tacoma, Washington, and Austin, Texas. The studio was founded by Charles Brungardt, Kedhrin Gonzales and Raphael Saadiq in 2007. IllFonic is best known for developing asymmetric multiplayer games like Friday the 13th: The Game , Predator: Hunting Grounds and Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed .
IllFonic founder Charles Brungardt had been working with R&B artist Raphael Saadiq since exiting college, producing and engineering records. [2] While working together, Saadiq confronted Brungardt with the idea of appearing in video games, based on which the game Ghetto Golf was conceptualized. [2] Brungardt subsequently relocated from Los Angeles to Denver and, together with Kedhrin Gonzales, formed IllFonic out of a garage. [2] Saadiq is also considered a co-founder. [3] The studio moved around within Denver, from the garage to an apartment, then to offices above bars on Denver's broadway, before moving to proper offices by Speer Boulevard in the Golden Triangle in June 2013. [2] On the night of March 5, 2010, a cannabis dispensary located next to IllFonic's offices was robbed. The Denver Police Department answered the alarm but incorrectly arrived at IllFonic's address, handcuffing three of its employees at gunpoint before the error was resolved. [4]
In March 2010, IllFonic was announced to be developing Nexuiz , a remake of the game of the same name released by Alientrap in 2005. [5] [6] The remake was released in February 2012 for Xbox 360 and in May 2012 for Microsoft Windows, published through THQ Partners, part of publisher THQ. [3] [7] However, as THQ went through bankruptcy, the servers for Nexuiz' Xbox 360 version were shut down. [7] The rights to the game then failed to be sold during THQ's bankruptcy auctions. [3] In 2013, IllFonic was contracted to develop the "Star Marine" module and the first-person systems for the game Star Citizen . [8] The game's developer, Cloud Imperium Games, planned to integrate these assets into the main game, however, after one year of work, discrepancies in the scales of the two studios' assets were found, making them incompatible. [8] IllFonic continued working on Star Citizen, and their work was nearly completed by August 2015. [9] That month, IllFonic laid off six developers, including three of those working on Star Citizen. [9] In July 2013, IllFonic announced Revival, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. [10] The game's development was "indefinitely suspended" in March 2016. [11]
In late 2014, IllFonic and publisher Gun Media announced Slasher Vol. 1: Summer Camp, an asymmetrical hide-and-seek-style action game. [12] In early 2015, the game came to the attention of Sean S. Cunningham, the producer of the Friday the 13th series of films, who approached Gun Media to turn Summer Camp into a licensed game; the game was subsequently renamed to Friday the 13th: The Game . [13] By this time, IllFonic had 50 employees. [14] The game was released in May 2017 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. [15] However, legal battle surrounding the Friday the 13th franchise rights was in progress, causing IllFonic to cease development of new content for the game by June 2018. [16] A Nintendo Switch port of Friday the 13th: The Game was released in August 2019. [17] Dead Alliance, a multiplayer first-person shooter, was developed by Psyop Games and IllFonic, and released by Maximum Games in August 2017. [18] The game was previously known as Moving Hazard. [19] In November 2018, IllFonic opened a second office in Tacoma, Washington, with an initial seven staff members. [20] [21] By January 2019, the Denver headquarters had been relocated to Golden, Colorado. [20] Both offices collectively employed 78 people (38 in Golden and 40 in Tacoma) in July 2019, while the Tacoma office alone had 47 employees by November. [21] [22]
One of the IllFonic's most recent games, Predator: Hunting Grounds, was released for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 in April 2020. [23] [24] In January 2020, former Sony Interactive Entertainment executive Gio Corsi joined IllFonic as chief product officer. By this time, the company had also opened a third office in Austin, Texas. [25]
Year | Title | Platform(s) | Publisher(s) |
---|---|---|---|
2012 | Nexuiz | Xbox 360, Windows | THQ |
2017 | Friday the 13th: The Game | Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One | Gun Media |
Dead Alliance | PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One | Maximum Games | |
2020 | Predator: Hunting Grounds | PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S | Sony Interactive Entertainment, IllFonic |
2021 | Arcadegeddon | PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S | IllFonic |
2022 | Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed | PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S | IllFonic |
2024 | Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game | PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S | IllFonic |
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Raphael Saadiq is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He rose to fame as a member of the multiplatinum group Tony! Toni! Toné! In addition to his solo and group career, he has also produced songs for such artists as Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, Total, Joss Stone, D'Angelo, TLC, En Vogue, Kelis, Mary J. Blige, Ledisi, Whitney Houston, Solange Knowles and John Legend. Music critic Robert Christgau has called Saadiq the "preeminent R&B artist of the '90s".
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Nexuiz is a first-person shooter video game developed by IllFonic and published by THQ for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360. It used CryEngine 3 and it is based on the original free game Nexuiz. The servers for the Xbox 360 and PC versions were taken offline in February 2013 due to the closure of THQ.
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Friday the 13th: The Game is a 2017 asymmetrical survival horror game developed by IllFonic and published by Gun Media. It is based on the Friday the 13th franchise. The game was released on May 26, 2017 as a digital release and later released on October 13, 2017, as a physical release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A Nintendo Switch version was released on August 13, 2019.
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Predator: Hunting Grounds is a 2020 multiplayer video game developed by IllFonic and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game is part of the Predator franchise, featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger reprising his role as Alan "Dutch" Schafer (Predator), Alice Braga reprising her role as Isabelle (Predators), and Jake Busey reprising his role as Sean Keyes. Set in the remote jungles of the world, it tasks a team of four elite operatives with completing paramilitary operations before a single Predator can find and eliminate them.
Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed is a 2022 action game by IllFonic. An asymmetrical multiplayer game based on the Ghostbusters media franchise, it is set after the events of Ghostbusters: Afterlife and focuses on players tackling matches either as a ghostbuster trying to capture ghosts, or a ghost trying to haunt a location. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in October 2022. A Nintendo Switch port was released on October 19, 2023.