Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Middleton, Wisconsin, and part of Activision. Founded in May 1990 by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel, the company is most known for the dark fantasy franchise Heretic/Hexen, the first two Soldier of Fortune games, as well as licensed titles based in the Star Wars: Jedi Knight series and Marvel Comics's X-Men characters, including 2006's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Since 2011, Raven has been working on multiple Call of Duty games as both lead and support developer.
Vinland, Vineland, or Winland was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Eriksson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the Vinland Sagas, and describes Newfoundland and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence as far as northeastern New Brunswick. Much of the geographical content of the sagas corresponds to present-day knowledge of transatlantic travel and North America.
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is a 2002 first-person shooter video game developed by 2015, Inc. and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Allied Assault is the third game in the Medal of Honor series. The game uses the id Tech 3 engine, with modifications from Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.², to simulate infantry combat in the European and North African theaters during World War II.
Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca Heineman, as well as investor Chris Wells. As a developer, Interplay is best known as the creator of the Fallout series and as a publisher for the Baldur's Gate and Descent series.
Maya the Bee is the main character in The Adventures of Maya the Bee, a German book written by Waldemar Bonsels and published in 1912. The book has been published in many other languages and adapted into different media. The first American edition was published in 1922 by Thomas Seltzer and illustrated by Homer Boss. The latter's wife Adele Szold-Seltzer (1876-1940), the daughter of Benjamin Szold and younger sister of Henrietta Szold, was the translator.
Poets of the Fall (POTF) is a Finnish rock band from Helsinki. The group consists of Marko Saaresto, Olli Tukiainen, Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen, Jani Snellman (bass), Jaska Mäkinen, and Jari Salminen.
The Norse mythology, preserved ancient Icelandic texts such as the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and other lays and sagas, was little known outside Scandinavia until the 19th century. With the widespread publication of Norse myths and legends at this time, references to the Norse gods and heroes spread into European literary culture, especially in Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain. In the later 20th century, references to Norse mythology became common in science fiction and fantasy literature, role-playing games, and eventually other cultural products such as Japanese animation. Storytelling was an important aspect of Norse mythology and centuries later, with the rediscovery of the myth, Norse mythology once again relies on the impacts of storytelling to spread its agenda.
Rockstar Vienna was an Austrian video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Vienna. Peter Baustädter, Niki Laber, and Hannes Seifert founded the studio as Neo Software in January 1993 as they neared the completion of Whale's Voyage. The game led Neo Software to early success, as did 1994's The Clue!, which sold over a million copies, and enabled the company to relocate from Seifert's house in Hirtenberg to offices in Vienna. After Neo Software's Alien Nations sold more than a million copies in 1999, Computec Media acquired a majority stake in the company, seeking it to produce online games. It then sold the studio and several other businesses to Gameplay.com in February 2000, which sold Neo Software to Take-Two Interactive in January 2001 as part of a subsidiary exchange.
Stargate Worlds was to be a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) video game, but it was put on hold and never released. It was developed by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment (CME) in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and would have been published by FireSky for Microsoft Windows. The game's setting was based on the military science fiction series Stargate SG-1. The game was to focus on a premise set around an ancient device called the "Stargate".
JoWooD Entertainment AG was an Austrian video game publisher that was founded in 1995. JoWooD went into administration in 2011 and all assets were purchased by Nordic Games.
Germany has the second-largest video games player base in Europe, with 44.3 million gamers in 2018, after Russia. Consumers in Germany spent €5.87 billion on video games over the course of 2021, a 3 percent year-on-year increase from 2020. The video game market in Germany grew by 6 percent to €6.2 billion in 2019.
Larian Studios is a Belgian independent video game developer and publisher founded in 1996 by Swen Vincke. Headquartered in Ghent, Belgium, Larian focuses on developing role-playing video games but has previously worked on educational games and casino games. It is best known for developing the Divinity series and Baldur's Gate 3.
Dept. Heaven is a series of video games developed by Sting Entertainment, headed by Shinichi Ito. Four main entries were released across the 2000s and early 2010s - Riviera: The Promised Land (2002), Yggdra Union (2006), Knights in the Nightmare (2008) and Gungnir (2011). While a fifth entry was briefly teased in 2008, only spinoffs and remasters have released moving into the 2020s.
Deck13 Interactive GmbH is a German video game developer and publisher based in Frankfurt. The company was founded in July 2001 by the team behind Artex Software, a studio that primarily developed video games for RISC OS, such as Ankh: The Tales of Mystery. Originally bearing the name TriggerLab, the company was renamed to Deck13 after the release of its first game, Stealth Combat, in 2002. Deck13 is best known for developing the action role-playing games Lords of the Fallen and The Surge. Deck13 also operates a Hamburg-based subsidiary studio, Deck13 Hamburg.
The Xbox is a home video game console manufactured by Microsoft that is the first installment in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was released as Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market on November 15, 2001, in North America, followed by Australia, Europe and Japan in 2002. It is classified as a sixth-generation console, competing with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast and Nintendo's GameCube. It was also the first major console produced by an American company since the release of the Atari Jaguar in 1993.
GamersGate AB is a Sweden-based online video game store offering electronic strategy guides and games for Windows, macOS, and Linux via direct download. It is a competitor to online video game services such as Steam, GOG.com, and Direct2Drive.
The AFL video game series is a series of Australian rules football video games licensed and based on the VFL/AFL.
Traitors Gate is a 1999 graphic adventure game developed by Daydream Software. Set in a reproduction of the Tower of London, it follows the story of Raven, an American special agent trying to steal and replace the Crown Jewels of England to safeguard them from a rogue operative. The player assumes the role of Raven and solves puzzles within the Tower while evading the guards. Progression through the game is nonlinear and under a time limit: the player may solve certain challenges in multiple ways, but must win before 12 hours elapse.
Cultures: Discovery of Vinland is a 2000 real-time strategy and city-building game developed by Funatics Software and published by Phenomedia. It is the first entry in the Cultures series.
Valhalla Hills is a 2015 video game developed by Funatics Software and published by Daedalic Entertainment. The game is a city-building and strategy game in which players control a tribe of Vikings to build and maintain a settlement with the objective of reaching a portal atop a mountain to enter Valhalla. Upon release, Valhalla Hills received mixed to average reviews, with critics praising the visual design and presentation of the game and pace, but critiquing the implementation of its gameplay mechanics and replayability. Following release, Funatics developed two pieces of downloadable content, Fire Mountains and Sand of the Damned, introducing locations and enemies, and compiled them in a Definitive Edition published in 2017.
