Probably the worst piece of gaming news I’ve read in a while is that Black Isle Studios was shut down by Interplay. The word came through the official Interplay messageboards by way of Damien Foletto, one of the developers on the BIS team.
Sure I went out of my way to slag Lionheart, but that was by far the low point of Black Isle’s almost flawless track record. For a group of developers to have supplied the CRPG world with titles like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Fallout with equally successful sequels, single handedly change our expecations for what a single-player CRPG should be with Planescape: Torment and then be cast aside because its parent company wants to focus on consoles is deplorable at best. So instead of seeing the Fallout 3 project to completion, Interplay has decided to dedicate their developers to pumping out titles like Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II. Both of which franchises, I would like to emphasize, started out on the PC. I wish the former Black Isle Studios team the best of luck.
Add this studio to the obituary of those that helped revolutionize the game development industry. Another personal favorite, Warren Spector’s Looking Glass, closed its doors in May of 2000.
at the top of the stairs, you shove
Ummmm, not to be a prick or anything, but Looking Glass closed in MAY OF 2000.
Also, BIS was neither responsible for BG nor BGII (those were both developed exclusively by Bioware).
Also, it’s worth mentioning that BIS wasn’t entirely to blame for the petrified turd that was Lionheart. They originally started work on it, ran into some “development conflicts” with Interplay, and ended up fobbing it off on some other team.
I agree that it’s very sad news, however.
BIS, farewell.
D’OH! My bad, sorry dude.
BGII was in fact the creation of Black Isle, not Bioware. Damn, now I’m even sadder than before
Wow…you are in fact correct about Looking Glass. I guess I should pay attention to the date on those press releases huh? I’ll change the post to reflect.
Also – Black Isle did not EXCLUSIVELY develop BG & BG II, but they did have a hand in it. Check the credits.
And about Lionheart – the fact that they had to stoop as low as contracting out the game was mentioned in my review