Black Isle Studios
Overview
Black Isle Studios was a development division of developer and publisher
Interplay. Originally formed in 1996, it started using the name in 1998 and it was based in California, USA. The division's name refers to Black Isle in Scotland, the native country of founder
Feargus Urquhart.
The studio was a continuation of Interplay's
DragonPlay, not a real division with a dedicated group of people, but rather a name used to introduce RPGs. Black Isle Studios continued this by solely focusing on RPGs. The company established and worked on 2 major franchises:
Fallout and
Icewind Dale. Other games are
Planescape: Torment and
Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader (although mainly the work of
Reflexive Entertainment Inc). Next to in-house projects, Black Isle also aided in the development of
BioWare's Baldur's Gate series. There was one game in the series they developed by themselves,
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (2004 - Xbox/PS2)
The division was closed on 8th December 2003, when they were working on
Fallout 3. Three more titles had been cancelled earlier:
Stonekeep II (2001),
Black Isle's Torn (2001) and
Baldur's Gate 3: The Black Hound (2003). Many of the employees moved on to
Obsidian Entertainment.
Trivia
The company code-named its projects after U.S. presidents and vice-presidents, an idea by
Josh Sawyer.
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