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Company type | Private |
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Industry | Video games |
Founded | 2007Denver, Colorado, US | in
Founders |
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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 , Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed , and Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game .
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".
Nexuiz is a free first-person shooter video game developed and published by Alientrap. The game was released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and uses the DarkPlaces engine, a modified Quake engine. A remake, also called Nexuiz, was released for Steam and Xbox 360 using CryEngine 3. The original game was released on May 31, 2005.
Turtle Rock Studios is an American video game developer founded in March 2002 by Mike Booth. It was acquired by Valve in 2008, but was re-founded in 2010 as a subsidiary of Slamfire Inc. by Phil Robb and Chris Ashton. Turtle Rock Studios is involved in the creation of original titles as well as the provision of consulting services to the digital entertainment industry.
Destroy All Humans! is an open world action-adventure video game franchise that is designed as a parody of Cold War-era alien invasion films. Destroy All Humans! and Destroy All Humans! 2 were released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox; Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed was released for the Wii; and Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon was released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A remake of the original game and its sequel were developed by Black Forest Games and were released in 2020 and 2022, respectively.
Jagged Alliance 3 is a tactical role-playing video game developed by Haemimont Games and published by THQ Nordic. The game was released for Windows on July 14, 2023. The game was also released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on November 16, 2023. It is the first mainline entry in the Jagged Alliance series since Jagged Alliance 2 (1999).
Metro: Last Light is a 2013 first-person shooter video game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. A sequel to the video game Metro 2033 and the second installment in the Metro series, its story follows Artyom, a young soldier living in the Moscow Metro after a devastating nuclear war. Tasked with finding the mysterious Dark Ones, Artyom must venture to different parts of the metro system, and the surface filled with radiated gases, and fight against different factions and mutated monsters. The game improves on various gameplay mechanics of 2033, and introduces elements such as weapon customization.
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.
Black Forest Games GmbH is a German video game developer based in Offenburg. The company was founded in July 2012 by a team of 40 staff members, including chief executive officer Andreas Speer, previously employed by Spellbound Entertainment, which filed for insolvency earlier that year. As of August 2017, it is a subsidiary of THQ Nordic. As of January 2024, the company employs 55 people.
Evolve is a first-person shooter video game developed by Turtle Rock Studios and published by 2K. Announced in January 2014, the game was released worldwide for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in February 2015. Evolve uses an asymmetrical multiplayer structure, where five players—four playing as hunters and one as the monster—battle against each other on an industrialized alien planet called Shear. The hunters' gameplay is based on the first-person shooter design, while the monsters are controlled from a third-person perspective. The hunters' goal is to eliminate the monster, while the monster's goal is to consume wildlife and evolve to make themselves stronger before either eliminating the hunters, or successfully destroying the objective.
Wreckfest is a racing video game developed by Bugbear Entertainment and published by THQ Nordic. Wreckfest is described as the spiritual successor to the FlatOut series and a cross between FlatOut, Destruction Derby and cult 1989 PC racer Street Rod. A notable feature of the game engine is the use of soft-body damage modelling, which enables location-based damage that affects the driving dynamics of vehicles in a realistic fashion.
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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In the video game industry during 2019, both Sony and Microsoft announced their intent to reveal their next-generation consoles in 2020, while Nintendo introduced a smaller Nintendo Switch Lite, and Google announced its streaming game platform Stadia. The controversy over loot boxes as a potential gambling route continued into 2019, with some governments like Belgium and the Netherlands banning games with them under their gambling laws, while the United Kingdom acknowledging their current laws prevent enforcing these as if they were games of chance. The first video cards to support real-time ray tracing were put onto the consumer market, including the first set of games that would take advantage of the new technology. The Epic Games Store continued its growth in challenging the largest digital PC game distribution service Steam, leading to concern and debate about Epic Games' methods to seek games for its service. Dota Auto Chess, a community-created mod for Dota 2, introduced a new subgenre of strategy games called auto battlers, which saw several games in the genre released throughout the year. Blizzard Entertainment faced criticism due to their involvement in the Blitzchung controversy, which began after they had banned a Hearthstone player for making comments during a tournament regarding the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.
Destroy All Humans! is an open world action-adventure video game developed by Black Forest Games and published by THQ Nordic. The game is a remake of the 2005 original game and the fifth installment in the Destroy All Humans! franchise. This remake is the first entry in the franchise since Path of the Furon (2008).
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" Schaefer (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.