Masthead Studios

Last updated
Masthead Studios
Type Independent company
Industry Video games
Founded 2005
Headquarters Sofia, Bulgaria
Key people
Atanas Atanasov (CEO)
Products Guns and Robots
Earthrise
Website http://www.mastheadstudios.com [ dead link ]

Masthead Studios is a Bulgarian video game developer, founded in 2005, specializing in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Their latest PC game developed and published was Soul Grabber, released on Steam in 2019. [1]

Contents

Development history

Fallout Online

It was announced in April 2009 that Interplay were working with Masthead Studios to complete work on Fallout Online , a Fallout universe-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game. [2] [3] In September of the same year, Bethesda began legal action against Interplay about the project, because Interplay had sought to recruit Masthead Studios to develop the MMO eleven days after Bethesda had revoked the Fallout license. [4] The result was that all rights granted to Interplay to develop a Fallout online game were returned to Bethesda. [5]

Earthrise

Masthead Studios' first independent project, Earthrise , was released in February 2011. [6] [7] Earthrise and its engine were in development for six years. At the beginning of 2012, the ownership and management of the game was transferred to Silent Future, a Germany-based company, for further development. [8]

Guns and Robots

Masthead Studios is developing an online shooter game called Guns and Robots , featuring robot customization. [9] The game is offered in free-to-play format. The graphics and atmosphere of the game are produced with the Unity game engine. [10] The development started with an initial limited closed beta test, [11] followed by an open beta released in January 2013. [12] [13] [14] After the success of the open beta phase, Guns and Robots has been approved on Steam Greenlight [15] and is available on Steam for purchase.

Minor releases

The company released the game Soul Grabber on Steam in 2019. Mr Robo Gun: Bullets Ricochet Puzzle was also released as an Android mobile game in 2020. [16]

Related Research Articles

Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a division of Media Technology Limited, and in 1999 became a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. In its first fifteen years, it was a video game developer and self-published its titles. In 2001, Bethesda spun off its own in-house development team into Bethesda Game Studios, and Bethesda Softworks retained only its publishing function. In 2021, Microsoft purchased ZeniMax, maintaining that the company will continue to operate as a separate business.

<i>Fallout</i> (series) Video game series

Fallout is a series of post-apocalyptic role-playing video games—and later action role-playing games—created by Interplay Entertainment. The series is set during the 21st, 22nd and 23rd centuries, and its atompunk retrofuturistic setting and art work are influenced by the post-war culture of 1950s United States, with its combination of hope for the promises of technology and the lurking fear of nuclear annihilation. A forerunner of Fallout is Wasteland, a 1988 game developed by Interplay Productions to which the series is regarded as a spiritual successor.

Interplay Entertainment American video game developer and publisher

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.

Mythic Entertainment

Mythic Entertainment was a video game developer in Fairfax, Virginia that was most widely recognized for developing the 2001 massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot. Mythic was a prolific creator of multiplayer online games following its establishment in the mid-1990s.

Multiplayer BattleTech: 3025 is a PC MMORPG developed by Kesmai during the same period as Microsoft's MechWarrior 4: Vengeance. The game occupies the fictional 31st century universe of BattleTech and focuses centrally on the large robotic war machines called BattleMechs ('Mechs) and the individuals who pilot them. The game was released as a beta in 2001 and shut down with little explanation on December 6, 2001.

Matt Firor is a video game producer and designer of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). He is best known for his involvement in games such as Dark Age of Camelot and The Elder Scrolls Online.

ZeniMax Online Studios LLC is an American video game developer and a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media, specializing in massively multiplayer online games. The company developed The Elder Scrolls Online and its downloadable content. ZeniMax Online Studios had around 250 employees in 2012. In addition to the main Hunt Valley, Maryland based office, ZeniMax Online also maintains a customer support center in Galway, Ireland as well as an additional office in Austin, Texas.

<i>Earthrise</i> (video game) 2011 video game

Earthrise is a science fiction player vs player massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) by independent Bulgarian developer Masthead Studios released in February 2011.

Micro Forté Pty Ltd is an Australian electronic entertainment company with development studios in Canberra and Sydney. Founded in 1985 by John De Margheriti at a time when there was little game development presence in Australia, Micro Forté has been closely linked to the growth of the Australian game development industry, with CEO De Margheriti initiating events such as the Australian Game Developers Conference (AGDC) and founding the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE).

<i>Fallout Online</i> Cancelled video game

Fallout Online is a cancelled massively multiplayer online game (MMO) set in the Fallout universe that was being developed by Masthead Studios and was to be published by Interplay, with members of the Interplay team providing creative control and design. Chris Taylor and Mark O'Green, two of the creators of the original Fallout, were among the developers; Jason Anderson, one of the other makers of Fallout, was involved in the project between 2007 and 2009, but then left the team. Interplay's rights to develop and publish this game have been the subject of legal disputes between Interplay and Bethesda Softworks, the current owner of the Fallout franchise. An out-of-court settlement was reached in 2012 as Bethesda received full rights to the Fallout online game for two million dollars, eventually releasing its own online game, Fallout 76, six years later.

<i>NEStalgia</i> 2011 video game

NEStalgia is game for Microsoft Windows created by American indie developer Silk Games. NEStalgia was launched on February 23, 2011, then released for Steam on April 15, 2014. The core gameplay follows the classic Japanese role-playing game format with turn-based battles, random encounters, and explorable towns and dungeons.

Trion Worlds American video game developer

Trion Worlds was an American video game developer. It focuses primarily on MMOs, particularly of the MMORPG and MMORTS genres. The company was founded in 2006 by Lars Buttler and Jon Van Caneghem, who had each previously worked for NCSoft and left in 2009 to join Electronic Arts.

<i>GunZ 2</i> 2011 video game

GunZ: The Second Duel is an online third-person shooting game created by South Korean-based MAIET Entertainment. It is the sequel to 2003's GunZ: The Duel. Gunz 2 began its first closed beta test in Korea in early 2011, however it has yet to be released. Gunz 2 is currently greenlit on Steam via its Greenlight program, and has entered into beta testing on February 17, 2014 via Steam Greenlight. The Steam version of Gunz 2 is available for international players, mainly in North America. The European version of Gunz 2 was hosted during its open beta phase by ProSiebenSat.1 Media. On 15 December 2014 the licensing agreement between MAIET Entertainment and Prosieben ended where MAIET opened a Steam server for the European region.

Carbine Studios

Carbine Studios was a video game developer and subsidiary of NCSOFT, founded in 2005 by former members of Blizzard Entertainment. They were the developers of the online role-playing game WildStar.

<i>Guns and Robots</i> 2014 video game

Guns and Robots is a cartoon-style online shooter developed by Masthead Studios for Microsoft Windows. The focus on the game is construction of gunfighters and team-based gameplay.

8BitMMO is a massively multiplayer game and a free-to-play created by American indie studio Archive Entertainment. It is currently in a public beta-testing stage and has been released on Steam on December 14, 2013 and currently on Early Access. It was created and is actively developed by Robby Zinchak. Users are encouraged to build in a shared world and undertake player vs environment and player vs player combat. The game was released on Steam.

<i>Novus Inceptio</i> 2015 video game

Novus Inceptio is an indie video game by McMagic Productions s.r.o. It is projected as a survival Single Player set in a post-apocalyptic world that mixes science fiction and fantasy theme. Early access started in Oct 2015.

En Masse Entertainment American video game publisher

En Masse Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game publisher. Founded in June 2008, the company was based in Seattle, Washington and is best-known for publishing massively multiplayer online role-playing game TERA, which was developed by parent company Bluehole. The original En Masse leadership team had extensive experience in the video game industry at leading companies, including Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft, NCsoft, ArenaNet, and Electronic Arts. In January 2013, Chris Lee and Soo Min Park became chief executive officer and chief operating officer, respectively. On November 5, 2018, Bluehole and its subsidiaries, which include En Masse, were rearranged horizontally under a new parent company, Krafton Game Union. En Masse announced on August 17, 2020, that it had begun ceasing operations.

<i>Destiny of Ancient Kingdoms</i> 2016 video game

Destiny of Ancient Kingdoms more commonly known as DOAK, is the first South African free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) to be released on Steam. DOAK was created with the purpose of giving South Africans a PC game that they can truly call their own. Destiny of Ancient Kingdoms was developed and distributed by Utopia Dream Entertainment Alliance (UDEA) in South Africa. The story for Destiny of Ancient Kingdoms begins in a prehistoric age after Giants and Gods battled each other to decide the fate of the world. The game is currently shut down, along with the primary website.

<i>Fallout 76</i> 2018 online action multiplayer role-playing game

Fallout 76 is a 2018 online action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is an installment in the Fallout series and a prequel to previous entries. Fallout 76 is Bethesda Game Studios's first multiplayer game; players explore the open world, which has been torn apart by nuclear war, with others. Bethesda developed the game using a modified version of its Creation Engine, which allowed the accommodation of multiplayer gameplay and a more detailed game world than in previous games.

References

  1. "Soul Grabber on Steam". store.steampowered.com. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
  2. Fahey, Mike. "Interplay And Masthead Team For Potential Fallout MMO". Kotaku . Retrieved 4 March 2009.
  3. Thorsen, Tor (2009-04-03). "Earthrise studio arming Fallout MMORPG". GameSpot . Archived from the original on 2012-07-17. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  4. Williams, Bryn (14 September 2009). "Fallout MMO Drama: Bethesda Sues Interplay". GameSpy.
  5. Parrish, Kevin (9 January 2012). "Fallout MMO Rights Officially Restored to Bethesda". Tom's Hardware.
  6. IGN Staff. "Masthead Studios Launches MMORPG Earthrise" . Retrieved 4 February 2011.
  7. "Masthead Studios Announces Delay for upcoming MMORPG Earthrise". Masthead Studios. 15 April 2010. Archived from the original on 1 July 2010. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  8. "SilentFuture takes over Earthrise". SilentFuture. 10 May 2012. Archived from the original on 8 April 2013. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
  9. Rossignol ,Jim (3 October 2012). "Apt: Guns & Robots Will Feature Customisable Gunfighters Guns and Robots". Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
  10. Ritter,Tobias (17 July 2012). "Guns and Robots - Earthrise-Entwickler Masthead Studios kungdigt neuen Online- Shooter an" (in German).
  11. Younger, Paul (23 November 2012). "Robot Wars commence as Guns and Robots enters closed beta".
  12. "GUNS and ROBOTS Announced". Gamers Hell. Archived from the original on 2012-10-18.
  13. Hooson, Naren (28 January 2012). "Guns and Robots announces open beta". VG247 .
  14. Farokhmanesh, Megan (27 January 2013). "free online shooter guns and robots enters open beta=". Polygon .
  15. Nunneley, Stephany (4 April 2014). "Guns and Robots from Masthead Studios has been approved on Steam Greenlight". VG247 .
  16. "Mr Robo Gun : Bullets Ricochet Puzzle". Download.com. Retrieved 2020-08-13.