 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | November 18, 1996 |
| Founder | Sergey Orlovskiy |
| Headquarters | , Cyprus |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Sergey Orlovskiy (CEO) |
| Products | Etherlords series Blitzkrieg series Silent Storm series Heroes of Might and Magic V series Prime World |
| Website | nival.com |
Nival is a video game developer and publisher founded by Sergey Orlovskiy in 1996. It is headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus.
The company was founded by Sergey Orlovskiy on November 18, 1996 as Nival Interactive, and became famous as the developer of several successful role-playing and strategy series, including Rage of Mages (known as Allods in Eastern Europe), Blitzkrieg , and Etherlords , all of which would receive sequels. Nival also created the Silent Storm engine and developed several games using it, beginning with the eponymous Silent Storm series in 2003. Among these was Heroes of Might and Magic V and two add-ons, published by Ubisoft.
Nival began to self-publish its own games in 2005. Nival financed and published external developers including KranX Productions, creators of King's Bounty: Legions and Bytex, developers of Berserk Online. In early 2005, the part of Nival operating under the name Nival Interactive was bought by Ener1 Group, a Florida-based holdings company, for around $10 million. On November 30, 2007, Sergey Orlovskiy regained full control of Nival Interactive. [1]
In early 2010, another part of Nival, Astrum Nival, was bought by Digital Sky Technologies for more than $100 million, becoming a part of Astrum Online Entertainment. Nival's internal development studios became focused on PC and mobile projects. Nival has developed and launched Prime World , King's Bounty: Legions . [2]
In December 2013, Nival raised $6 million in its Series A funding round led by Almaz Capital. The funds were to be used for global expansion. [3]
In 2017, Nival claimed to have released the world's first neural network AI for the now-defunct RTS game Blitzkrieg 3 . [4] [5] [6] [7]
A turn-based strategy (TBS) game is a strategy game where players take turns when playing. This is distinguished from real-time strategy (RTS), in which all players play simultaneously.
Heroes of Might and Magic, known as Might & Magic Heroes in 2011–2024, is a series of video games created and developed by Jon Van Caneghem through New World Computing.
Blitzkrieg is a 2003 real-time tactics video game based on the events of World War II and is the first title in the Blitzkrieg series. The game allows players to assume the role of commanding officer during the battles of World War II that occurred in Europe and North Africa. Each country has its respective historically correct military units. Similar to the Sudden Strike games, Blitzkrieg focuses on battles rather than real-time strategy aspects like base building.
New World Computing, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1984 by Jon Van Caneghem, his wife, Michaela Van Caneghem, and Mark Caldwell. It was best known for its work on the Might and Magic role-playing video game series and its spin-offs, especially Heroes of Might and Magic. The company was purchased by and became a division of The 3DO Company on July 10, 1996 from NTN Communications, after NTN purchased New World Computing for $10 million in stock.
Etherlords is a series of fantasy turn-based strategy and card-dueling video games for the PC, by Russian developer Nival Interactive. The first game was published November 15, 2001 by Ravensburger Interactive Media under their mature game label Fishtank Interactive. Prior to worldwide release it was released in Russia one week earlier as Demiurges. It was followed two years later by a sequel, Etherlords II, which was published in Europe by DreamCatcher Interactive and in North America by Strategy First. A third game for the iOS and Android was released in 2014 titled Etherlords, a free-to-play game with automated battles.
Silent Storm is a 2003 turn-based tactics video game developed by Nival Interactive and published by JoWooD. The game is set in a fictionalized World War II Europe with science fiction elements.
Nival Interactive developed a proprietary game engine for its turn-based tactics video game Silent Storm. The engine was reused for Silent Storm: Sentinels, Night Watch, Hammer & Sickle and Day Watch. A modified version of this engine was used for Heroes of Might and Magic V. Akella used the engine for Jagged Alliance 3 in 2007 before that version of the game was cancelled in 2010.
Blitzkrieg 2 is a real-time tactics computer game based on the events of World War II. The game is an evolution of its predecessor Blitzkrieg and is the second title in the Blitzkrieg series. The game takes place in North Africa, the Pacific and Europe, and features the 6 different factions portrayed in the game that fought in their battle respective grounds during the war.
Heroes of Annihilated Empires is a real-time strategy role-playing video game developed by GSC Game World and released in October 2006.
Rage of Mages is a PC game that combines role-playing and real-time strategy. Produced by Nival Interactive it was first released in Russia under the name of Allods: The Seal of Mystery. The game was published in April 1998 in the EU by Buka Entertainment and on October 13, 1998 in the US. It was re-released in 2016 on GOG.com.
Shi Yuzhu is a Chinese entrepreneur and software engineer.
Astrum Online Entertainment is a Russian holding company which operates in the online entertainment market of Eastern Europe. Founded in the beginning of December 2007, it incorporated four companies, which specialize in development, publishing and operating online games: Nival Online, IT Territory, Time Zero, and Nikita Online. In summer 2008 the fifth company, the developer of online games called "DJ Games", joined in.
Allods Online is a free-to-play 3D fantasy MMORPG developed by Allods Team, formerly Astrum Nival, and published by Mail.Ru Group globally, with the international version operated by their subsidiary My.com. The game was originally released in North America on May 11, 2011.
King's Bounty: Legions is a social, turn-based strategy video game developed jointly by Nival and KranX Productions. It is based on the strategy game King's Bounty: The Legend, which is itself based on concepts from the much older King's Bounty developed in 1990 by New World Computing. It is currently available to play on Facebook, iPad, Windows Phone as well Android devices.
Prime World is a freemium massively multiplayer online role-playing game and multiplayer online battle arena hybrid game, internally developed by Nival and available for PC and Mac with companion apps for Android and iOS platforms.
Sergey Orlovskiy is the founder and CEO of Nival, one of the oldest game development companies in Eastern Europe. In addition to heading Nival, Orlovskiy is a member of the board of directors of Alawar Entertainment.
Blitzkrieg 3 was an online massively multiplayer online real-time strategy computer game, based on the events of World War II, a sequel to Blitzkrieg 2 and is the third and latest title in the Blitzkrieg series. Nival published the first trailer for the game on YouTube on August 13, 2013, featuring live action footage mixed with concept artwork and actual in-game footage and renders. Blitzkrieg's pre-order campaign was launched in November 2014. Blitzkrieg 3 hit Steam Early Access in May 2015, and was released on June 2, 2017, and shut down on December 14, 2022.
Allods Team is a video game developer and a subsidiary of My.Games. Founded in September 2006, it was previously known as Nival Online and Astrum Nival. On February 24, 2010, Mail.Ru announced the 100% acquisition of Astrum Nival from its former owners. From that point, Astrum Nival acts under the name of Mail.Ru. On September 29, 2011, the studio was renamed to Allods Team.
Owlcat Games is a video game developer founded in 2016 by Oleg Shpilchevskiy and Alexander Mishulin. It is headquartered in Cyprus, with satellite office in Armenia. It is best known for developing computer role-playing games such as Pathfinder: Kingmaker (2018), its successor, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (2021), and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (2023).
Every few seconds AI, who we kindly named general Boris, analyzes the gaming session and makes neural network-based predictions of the enemy future behavior. This approach allows him to think up sophisticated counter-strategies and bring them to life
After playing some of the campaign and with determination to beat the new AI, my first impressions are a mix of praise for the new AI and frustration over the difficulty of the campaigns. Not so much a bad frustration, more like it is a very hard game and will give players, even those experienced in the war and RTS genres a nice challenge
as reader 'Ur-Quan' points out, 2010's Supreme Commander 2 also gabbed about using neural networks. There's only one way to settle this: Robot Wars
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