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Interplay Entertainment is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was founded in 1983 by former Boone Corporation colleagues Brian Fargo, Troy Worrell, Jay Patel, and Rebecca Heineman (then known as Bill Heineman), as well as an investor and University of California, Irvine, teacher named Chris Wells, and adopted Interplay Productions as its original company name two years later. As a developer, it produced several graphic adventure games for Activision to publish, but its first major hit was The Bard's Tale in 1985, a role-playing game published by Electronic Arts. [1] Dragon Wars became the first game that Interplay published while it continued to score hits with titles such as Battle Chess , titles that demonstrated early on the developer's preference for risk-taking involving unconventional concepts for them. [2]
In the early 1990s, Interplay founded a division called MacPlay that was tasked with porting the company's games to the macOS. [3] Interplay's business grew well into the mid-1990s, such that Fargo, its CEO, split it into several more divisions with some employed as directors overseeing the divisions' projects. One of the divisions was created in 1995, called VR Sports and later renamed to Interplay Sports in 1998, to deal with sports games. [4] Another division was founded in 1996 to develop role-playing games, becoming Black Isle Studios two years later. [5] Brainstorm was also founded in 1996 and specialized in educational games. [6] Interplay also acquired Shiny Entertainment in 1995, best known as the creator of the Earthworm Jim series. [7] Further notable releases by Interplay during that time include Parallax Software's Descent and its own Fallout series. [8]
By 1998, Interplay was hit with a bankruptcy crisis. To avoid closure, it began trading on the NASDAQ exchange under the new and current name, Interplay Entertainment. However, repeated development delays, poor sales showings, stiffened competition in the PC gaming market, and the company's underestimation of console demand contributed to its financial woes. It was delisted from NASDAQ in 2002, and Fargo's successor, Titus Interactive co-founder Hervé Caen, decided that the company must cancel numerous current projects and close or sell its studios. 2004's Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II would become the last game published by Interplay until 2010 with its establishment of Interplay Discovery, [9] and the company narrowly avoided the corporate death penalty by selling the Fallout license to Bethesda Softworks in 2007, clearing its debt. [8]
Of the divisions Interplay had formed in its lifetime, only Black Isle Studios and Interplay Discovery remain active, though the former was briefly shut down in 2003 before it was reopened in 2012. [10] [5] Digital Mayhem operated from 2000 to 2003. [11] MacPlay was shut down in 1998 before it was acquired and relaunched by United Developers in 2000. [3] Shiny Entertainment was sold to Atari SA in 2002. [7] Tribal Dreams developed only one game before it was closed in 1998. [12] The following is a list of games developed, published or distributed by Interplay or any of its divisions.
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Interplay also developed, published, or distributed expansion packs, software that expands existing video games.
Name | Year | Expands | Platforms | Notes | Refs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast | 1999 | Baldur's Gate | Win | [254] | |
Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal | 2001 | Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn | Win | [255] | |
Carmageddon: Splat Pack | 1997 | Carmageddon | DOS | [101] | |
Castles: The Northern Campaign | 1991 | Castles | DOS | [256] | |
Descent: FreeSpace – Silent Threat | 1998 | Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War | Win | [257] | |
Descent Levels of the World | 1995 | Descent | DOS | [258] | |
Descent II: The Vertigo Series | 1996 | Descent II | DOS | Sold separately or as part of the Descent II: The Infinite Abyss bundle. | [259] |
Descent 3: Mercenary | 1999 | Descent 3 | Win | [260] | |
Die by the Sword: Limb from Limb | 1998 | Die by the Sword | Win | [261] | |
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter | 2001 | Icewind Dale | Win | [262] | |
Jetfighter III: Enhanced Campaign CD | 1997 | Jetfighter III | DOS | [263] | |
Redneck Rampage: Suckin' Grits on Route 66 | 1997 | Redneck Rampage | DOS | [101] | |
Star Trek Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates | 2001 | Star Trek Starfleet Command II: Empires at War | Win | Standalone expansion pack. | [264] |
Descent is a first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Parallax Software and released by Interplay Productions in 1995 for MS-DOS, and later for Macintosh, PlayStation, and RISC OS. It popularized a subgenre of FPS games employing six degrees of freedom and was the first FPS to feature entirely true-3D graphics. The player is cast as a mercenary hired to eliminate the threat of a mysterious extraterrestrial computer virus infecting off-world mining robots. In a series of mines throughout the Solar System, the protagonist pilots a spaceship and must locate and destroy the mine's power reactor and escape before being caught in the mine's self-destruction, defeating opposing robots along the way. Players can play online and compete in either deathmatches or cooperate to take on the robots.
Star Trek: Starfleet Command is a computer game based on the table-top wargame Star Fleet Battles. It was developed by 14° East and Quicksilver Software and published by Interplay Entertainment. It was released in 1999 for Microsoft Windows. It simulates starship operations, ship-to-ship combat, and fleet warfare in the Star Trek universe. An expanded version was released in 2000 titled Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Gold Edition. It includes the latest patch and all the missions that were downloadable from the official website.
Sid Meier's Civilization II is a turn-based strategy video game in the Civilization series, developed and published by MicroProse. It was released in 1996 for PCs, and later ported to the PlayStation by Activision.
Icewind Dale is a role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and originally published by Interplay Entertainment for Windows in 2000 and by MacPlay for the Macintosh in 2002. The game takes place in the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting and the region of Icewind Dale, and uses the 2nd edition ruleset. The story follows a different set of events than those of R. A. Salvatore's The Icewind Dale Trilogy novels: in the game, an adventuring party becomes enlisted as a caravan guard while in Icewind Dale, in the wake of strange events, and eventually discover a plot that threatens the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale and beyond.
Legend Entertainment Company was an American developer and publisher of computer games, best known for creating adventure titles throughout the 1990s. The company was founded by Bob Bates and Mike Verdu, both veterans of the interactive fiction studio Infocom that shut down in 1989. Legend's first two games, Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls and Timequest, had strong sales that sustained the company. Legend also profited from negotiating licenses to popular book series, allowing them to create notable game adaptations such as Companions of Xanth and Gateway. Legend also earned a reputation for comedic adventures, with numerous awards for Eric the Unready in 1993. As the technology of the game industry changed, Legend continued to expand its game engine to take advantage of higher graphical fidelity, mouse support, and the increased media storage of the compact disc.
Die by the Sword is a swordfighting action-adventure video game developed by Treyarch and published by Interplay Productions under their Tantrum Entertainment imprint on March 27, 1998. The game allows players to independently command the movement and swordfighting of their in-game avatars; running, jumping and turning with one hand, while simultaneously slashing, stabbing and parrying with the other. Die by the Sword also offered deathmatch and cooperative multiplayer play in its arena mode, where players could stage fights with up to three other players.
Avalon Interactive Group, Ltd. was a British video game distributor based within Europe that formerly traded as the video game publishing and distributing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group.
Descent II is a 1996 first-person shooter game developed by Parallax Software and first published for DOS by Interplay Productions. For the PlayStation, it is known as Descent Maximum. It is the second installment in the Descent video game series and the sequel to Descent. The base of the gameplay remaining the same, the player controls a spaceship from the pilot's perspective and must navigate extrasolar underground mines to locate and destroy their reactors and escape being caught in their self-destructions, while engaging and surviving infected robots, which will attempt to destroy the ship. Unlike other first-person shooters, its six-degrees-of-freedom scheme allows the player to move and rotate in any three-dimensional space and direction.
Redneck Rampage is a 1997 first-person shooter game developed by Xatrix Entertainment and published by Interplay. The game is a first-person shooter with a variety of weapons and levels, and has a hillbilly theme, primarily taking place in a fictional Arkansas town. Many of the weapons and power-ups border on the nonsensical, and in some ways the game is a parody of both first-person shooter games and rural American life.
Heart of Darkness is a cinematic platform video game developed by French developer Amazing Studio for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows.
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is an open-world, action role-playing game published by Bethesda Softworks. The second video game in the Elder Scrolls series, it was released on September 20, 1996 for MS-DOS, following the success of 1994's The Elder Scrolls: Arena. The story follows the player, sent by the Emperor, to free the ghost of King Lysandus from his earthly shackles and discover what happened to a letter sent from the Emperor to the former queen of Daggerfall.
Baldur's Gate is a role-playing video game that was developed by BioWare and published in 1998 by Interplay Entertainment. It is the first game in the Baldur's Gate series and takes place in the Forgotten Realms, a high fantasy campaign setting, using a modified version of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) 2nd edition rules. It was the first game to use the Infinity Engine for its graphics, with Interplay using the engine for other Forgotten Realms-licensed games, including the Icewind Dale series and Planescape: Torment. The game's story focuses on a player-made character who travels across the Sword Coast alongside a party of companions.
Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game is a 1997 role-playing video game developed and published by Interplay Productions. In a mid-22nd century post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic world, decades after a global nuclear war between the United States and China, Fallout's protagonist, the Vault Dweller, inhabits the underground nuclear shelter Vault 13. After customizing their character, the player must scour the surrounding wasteland for a computer chip that can fix the Vault's failed water supply system. They interact with other survivors, some of whom give them missions, and engage in turn-based combat where they battle until their action points are depleted.
Worms is a 2D artillery tactical video game developed by Team17 and released in 1995. It is the first game in the Worms series of video games. It is a turn based game where a player controls a team of worms against other teams of worms that are controlled by a computer or human opponent. The aim is to use various weapons to kill the worms on the other teams and have the last surviving worm(s).
Virtual Pool 2 is a 3D, first-person sports simulation video game developed by Celeris and released by VR Sports on behalf of Interplay Productions in 1997. It is the third release of the Virtual Pool franchise of computer simulations of pool games developed by Celeris. VP2 is the second main series title in the Virtual Pool series, and would later be released alongside Virtual Pool 1.
Of Light and Darkness: The Prophecy, also known as simply Of Light and Darkness, is a first-person point-and-click adventure video game developed by Tribal Dreams and published by Interplay Entertainment in 1998.