Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Video games |
Founded | January 1997 |
Defunct | February 11, 2010 |
Headquarters | Santa Monica, California, US |
Key people | Peter Morawiec Adrian Stephens |
Products | Vigilante 8 series True Crime series |
Number of employees | 80 |
Parent | Activision (2002–2010) |
Luxoflux Corp. was an American video game developer founded by Peter Morawiec and Adrian Stephens in January 1997, and based in Santa Monica, California.
Luxoflux had a relatively small-sized development team for its first few titles. The two founders were joined by Jeremy Engelman, David Goodrich and Edvard Toth, and released their first title Vigilante 8 to great success. The game was ported to the Nintendo 64, and was followed by the sequel Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense in 1999.
In October 2002, Activision announced it had purchased Luxoflux for an undisclosed price, which at the time was working on True Crime: Streets of LA . [1] [2] [3] The studio delivered the game and its sequel, True Crime: New York City , before working on licensed titles Shrek 2 , Kung Fu Panda and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen .
On February 11, 2010, Activision announced it had shut down Luxoflux and Underground Development as part of a widespread staff reduction. [4]
Year | Game | Platform(s) |
---|---|---|
1998 | Vigilante 8 | PlayStation, Nintendo 64 |
1999 | Vigilante 8: Second Offense | PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast |
2000 | Star Wars: Demolition | PlayStation, Dreamcast |
2003 | True Crime: Streets of LA | Microsoft Windows, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox |
2004 | Shrek 2 | |
2005 | True Crime: New York City | |
2008 | Kung Fu Panda | PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 |
2009 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen |
Cancelled: King (2003 Videogame)
The original founders of Luxoflux eventually founded Isopod Labs and announced Vigilante 8 Arcade that was released on Xbox Live Arcade in November 2008.
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California, and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard. Originally founded in 1991, the company is best known for producing the highly influential massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (2004), as well as the multi-million selling video game franchises Diablo,StarCraft and Overwatch. The company also operates Battle.net, an online gaming service.
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.
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and was the top United States publisher in 2016.
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, including the first such game, Mystery House. It is known for its graphical adventure game series King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, and Quest for Glory, and as the original publisher of Valve's Half-Life series.
Rare Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Twycross, Leicestershire. Rare's games span the platform, first-person shooter, action-adventure, fighting, and racing genres. Its most popular games include the Battletoads, Donkey Kong, and Banjo-Kazooie series, as well as games like GoldenEye 007 (1997), Perfect Dark (2000), Conker's Bad Fur Day (2001), Viva Piñata (2006), and Sea of Thieves (2018).
MicroProse is an American video game publisher and developer founded by Bill Stealey, Sid Meier, and Andy Hollis in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the Civilization and X-COM series. Most of their internally developed titles were vehicle simulation and strategy games.
Infinity Ward, Inc. is an American video game developer. They developed the video game Call of Duty, along with seven other installments in the Call of Duty series. Vince Zampella, Grant Collier, and Jason West established Infinity Ward in 2002 after working at 2015, Inc. previously. All of the 22 original team members of Infinity Ward came from the team that had worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault while at 2015, Inc. Activision helped fund Infinity Ward in its early days, buying up 30 percent of the company, before eventually fully acquiring them. The studio's first game, World War II shooter Call of Duty, was released on the PC in 2003. The day after the game was released, Activision bought the rest of Infinity Ward, signing employees to long-term contracts. Infinity Ward went on to make Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, the Modern Warfare reboot, and its sequel.
Neversoft Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Woodland Hills, California. The studio was founded by Joel Jewett, Mick West and Chris Ward in July 1994 and was acquired by Activision in October 1999. Initially, the studio worked with Playmates Toys, where they worked on the game Skeleton Warriors, which was based on a animated television series of the same name. Throughout 1996, the studio grew, and worked on projects with Crystal Dynamics and Sony Computer Entertainment, but due to internal conflicts, they were cancelled.
Treyarch Corporation is an American video game developer based in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1996 by Peter Akemann and Doğan Köslü, it was acquired by Activision in 2001. The studio is known for its work for the Call of Duty series, which it develops alongside Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software.
True Crime: Streets of LA is a 2003 open world action-adventure video game developed by Luxoflux and published by Activision for GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox in November 2003, for Microsoft Windows in May 2004, and by Aspyr for Mac OS X in March 2005. A mobile phone adaptation was released in November 2004. The game tells the story of Nicholas Kang, an uncompromising LAPD detective who is recruited into the Elite Operations Division in order to investigate a series of bombings in Chinatown. As he delves further into the case, he discovers it may be connected to the disappearance of his police-officer father twenty years previously. The game features a 240-square-mile (622 km2) re-creation of a large part of Los Angeles, including most of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, with most street names, landmarks and highways reproduced accurately.
Pandemic Studios, LLC was an American video game developer based in Westwood, Los Angeles. Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick founded the studio in 1998 after leaving Activision. Pandemic Studios, alongside BioWare, was acquired in 2005 by Elevation Partners and placed under VG Holding Corp., which in 2007 was sold to Electronic Arts (EA). EA closed Pandemic Studios in 2009. Pandemic Studios is known for a variety of titles, including Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars: Battlefront, Dark Reign 2, Destroy All Humans!, Mercenaries, and The Saboteur.
Vigilante 8 is a 1998 vehicular combat game developed by Luxoflux and published by Activision for PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy Color. Although officially it has no connection to Activision's Interstate '76 series, it features several of its themes including auto-vigilantes, the 1970s time frame, and specific fictional vehicle companies. Its home console versions received favorable reviews, and it was followed up by Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense in 1999. A remake was released as Vigilante 8 Arcade in 2008.
True Crime: New York City is a 2005 action-adventure video game developed by Luxoflux for PlayStation 2. It was ported to GameCube and Xbox by Exakt Entertainment, to Microsoft Windows by Aspyr, and to mobile by Hands-On Mobile. It was published on all systems by Activision. The PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube versions were released in November 2005, the PC version in March 2006, and the mobile version in March 2007. It is the second and final entry in the True Crime franchise, after the 2003 True Crime: Streets of LA.
Rockstar New England, Inc. is an American video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Andover, Massachusetts. Ian Lane Davis founded the company as Mad Doc Software in November 1999 after working as a technical director for Activision. The studio worked with Activision on Star Trek: Armada before leading the development of its sequel, Star Trek: Armada II. Starting in 2002, Mad Doc was the principal developer of the Empire Earth series, developing two games and two expansions. While the successful Empire Earth II landed the company publishing contracts with Rockstar Games and Bethesda Softworks, Empire Earth III was a critical and commercial failure and led to the end of the series. Mad Doc developed Star Trek: Legacy for Bethesda Softworks and Bully: Scholarship Edition for Rockstar Games. After the latter was released in March 2008, Rockstar Games's parent company, Take-Two Interactive, bought Mad Doc and integrated it with Rockstar Games as Rockstar New England. Under Rockstar Games, the studio worked on a sequel to Bully until its developers were reallocated to projects like Max Payne 3.
Vigilante 8: Arcade is a vehicular combat video game developed by Isopod Labs and published by Activision. It was released on November 5, 2008, for Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade. Isopod Labs was formed by three former members of Luxoflux, developer of the original Vigilante 8 series. A remake of Vigilante 8 with some elements of Vigilante 8: Second Offense included, Vigilante 8: Arcade features online play for up to eight players.
Sledgehammer Games, Inc. is an American video game developer company formed in 2009 by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey. The pair formerly worked at Visceral Games and are responsible for the creation of Dead Space. The company is based in Foster City, California. The studio has developed and co-developed various video games in the Call of Duty series. The company is owned by Activision.
Undead Labs LLC is an American video game developer based in Seattle, Washington. The company was founded in November 2009 by Jeff Strain and developed the State of Decay series. In 2018, Undead Labs became part of Microsoft Studios.
Respawn Entertainment, LLC is an American video game development studio founded in 2010 by Jason West and Vince Zampella and owned by Electronic Arts since 2017. West and Zampella previously co-founded Infinity Ward and created the Call of Duty franchise, where they were responsible for its development until 2010.
The Chinese Room is a British video game developer based in Brighton that is best known for exploration games. The company originated as a mod team for Half-Life 2, based at the University of Portsmouth in 2007, and is named after John Searle's Chinese room thought experiment. In August 2018, it became a subsidiary of Sumo Digital.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is an upcoming action role-playing video game published by Paradox Interactive. A sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (2004), the game is part of the World of Darkness series and based on the tabletop role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. The game was initially developed by Hardsuit Labs, but by 2021 had been moved to The Chinese Room. It is scheduled to release for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S in the first half of 2025.