Black Isle Studios

Short description: American game developer

Black Isle Studios

Type| Subsidiary In Name Only Unit of Interplay since original shut down in 2003
Industry| Video games
Successor| Obsidian Entertainment
Founded| 1996; 30 years ago (1996)
Founder| Feargus Urquhart
Headquarters|

Irvine, California

United States

Key people

| Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, Josh Sawyer, Darren Monahan, Chris Parker
Parent| Interplay Entertainment
Website| [lower-alpha 1]

Black Isle Studios is a division of the developer and publisher Interplay Entertainment that develops role-playing video games. It has published several games from other developers.

Black Isle is based in Irvine, California .[1] The division was formed in 1996, adopting the name "Black Isle Studios" in 1998.[2] The idea for the division's name came from the Black Isle in Scotland – founder Feargus Urquhart's ancestral country.[3] Black Isle Studios is most famous for its work on the Fallout series as well as the critically acclaimed Planescape. They achieved success with the Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate series of role-playing video games, though they only published the Baldur's Gate series. In 1999, IGN's RPG Vault gave it the award for a Developer of the Year.[4] The company was closed in late 2003 due to Interplay's financial troubles.[5]

Interplay briefly revived the Black Isle name in August 2012 with the intention of producing new role-playing games under that label.[6][7] Black Isle Studios released Baldur's Gate remastered in May 2021.[8]

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Games
* 2.1 Developed
* 2.2 Published
* 2.3 Compilations
* 2.4 Cancelled
* 3 Notes
* 4 References

## History

Created in 1996 by Feargus Urquhart, the studio was named Black Isle after Urquhart's homeland. The studio, although credited for the creation of Fallout was, in fact, not responsible for the game. Rather a key portion of the original studio came from the team that made Fallout. When developing Fallout 2, the studio's first official game, several employees left Interplay to form Troika Games after they "were unable to come to an agreement with Interplay as to how [their] next team should be structured."[9] The remaining team would go on to release such critically acclaimed games as Fallout 2, Planescape, and Icewind Dale. The studio also released critically acclaimed Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II developed by BioWare.

In the years leading to the closure of Black Isle, Interplay's financial difficulties would worsen, leading for the team to cancel anticipated games as Black Isle's Torn and Stonekeep 2: Godmaker, releasing only Icewind Dale II, publishing Lionheart and developing Baldur's Gate. On December 8, 2003, in the midst of serious financial difficulties, Interplay laid off the entire Black Isle Studios staff, which also resulted in the cancellation of Baldur's Gate III, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance III and the original Fallout 3.[5]

In 2012, Interplay had been trying for several years to get the troubled Project V13 off the ground. Originally conceived as a massively multiplayer online game set in the world of Fallout, the project suffered a significant setback when Interplay lost all rights to use the Fallout brand. As part of their efforts to restart the project anew, Interplay revived Black Isle Studios with two of its original team members and began a crowdfunding campaign to fund a prototype in 2012.[10] The campaign did not raise sufficient funds to develop a playable prototype, and communications from Interplay and Black Isle about the project had ceased completely by early 2014.[11]

## Games

### Developed

* Fallout (1997)
* Fallout 2 (1998)
* Planescape (1999)
* Icewind Dale (2000)
* Icewind Dale (2001)
* Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter – Trials of the Luremaster (2001)
* Icewind Dale II (2002)
* Baldur's Gate (2004)

### Published

* Baldur's Gate (1998)
* Baldur's Gate (1999)
* Baldur's Gate II (2000)
* Baldur's Gate II (2001)
* Baldur's Gate (2001)
* Lionheart (2003)

### Compilations

Two compilations bearing their name were also released:

* Black Isle Compilation (2002)
* Black Isle Compilation Part Two (2004)

### Cancelled

Cancelled projects include:

* Stonekeep 2: Godmaker (2001)
* Torn (2001)
* Van Buren (2003)
* Baldur's Gate III (2003)
* Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance III (2004)
* Project V13 (2012)

## Notes

1. ↑ Additional archives: ,

## References

1. ↑ "Black Isle Studios". IGN. http://games.ign.com/objects/027/027142.html.
2. ↑ Cheong, Ian. "Game Info". Lionheart Chronicles. GameSpy. http://www.rpgplanet.com/lionheart/info-faq.shtml.
3. ↑ Keefer, John (January 2001). "Black Isle Studios: We are not BioWare". GameSpy. http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/january01/blackisle/.
4. ↑ 1999 Vault Network Awards
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Thorsen, Tor (2003-12-08). "Interplay shuts down Black Isle Studios". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/fallout3/news_6085243.html.
6. ↑ Sarkar, Samit (8 August 2012). "Black Isle Studios is back in name only". Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/gaming/2012/8/27/3271246/black-isle-studios-is-back-in-name-only-interplay.
7. ↑ "Games – Page 83 – Black Gate". 23 October 2012. https://www.blackgate.com/category/games-reviews/page/83/.
8. ↑ "Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 Re-Release is "On the Table" – Black Isle Studios". https://gamingbolt.com/baldurs-gate-dark-alliance-2-re-release-is-on-the-table-black-isle-studios.
9. ↑ Blancato, Joe. "The Rise and Fall of Troika". The Escapist. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_77/440-The-Rise-and-Fall-of-Troika.
10. ↑ Rougeau, Mike (23 December 2012). "What The Hell Is Up With The New Black Isle?". Gizmodo Media Group. https://kotaku.com/5970832/what-the-hell-is-up-with-the-new-black-isle.
11. ↑ "Project V13 (Strategy RPG Version)". 5 September 2017. https://www.unseen64.net/2017/05/09/project-v13-srpg-black-isle-cancelled/.

* v
* t
* e

Black Isle Studios

Baldur's Gate series|

* Baldur's Gate
* Baldur's Gate III (cancelled)

Fallout series|

* Fallout1
* Fallout 2
* Van Buren (cancelled)

Icewind Dale series|

* Icewind Dale
* Heart of Winter
* Icewind Dale II

Other games|

* Planescape
* Torn (cancelled)

People|

* Feargus Urquhart
* Chris Avellone
* Josh Sawyer
* Chris Jones

1 Fallout was released prior to the studio's official naming.

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