GRIN AB

Overview

The development studio GRIN was founded by brothers Bo and Ulf Andersson in 1997 in Sweden. The studio's headquarters were in Stockholm.

The company's first release was Ballistics (2001 - PC, Arcade), the first game ever to use pixel-shaders. Next, the team created Bandits - Phoenix Rising (2002 - PC) and several arcade machines, as well as Military and Civilian simulators. All of its titles were powered by the proprietary, in-house developed DIESEL engine, which was also offered for licensing. Bugbear Entertainment used it for its FlatOut racing game and Fatshark AB, a studio partially owned by GRIN, currently employs it to create the shooter Lead & Gold: Gangs of the Wild West. The company also had a quality assurance studio in Indonesia.

GRIN went on to develop two games for Ubisoft. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (2006 - PC) and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 (2007 - PC) are both tactical games continuing the Ghost Recon franchise with separate games for the Windows platform.

In 2009 the company saw heavy layoffs, likely to the weaker-than-expected sales of three titles completed in the first half of the year: Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Terminator: Salvation and Bionic Commando (a heavily enhanced remake of the classic Bionic Commando). In May it was first reported more than 200 staff (about 50% of the workforce) had been let go from the Stockholm, Gothenburg and Barcelona offices. In June it was reported both the Barcelona and Gothenburg had been closed, with the Stockholm employees told not to come to work. On 12th August the company was officially closed. The Andersson founders cited an unbearable cashflow situation in their goodbye statement, blaming delayed payments by too many publishers. It also contained a reference to an unreleased title the studio was working on.

Prior to the closure about 25 ex-employees founded the development studio Outbreak Studios. In April 2010 a new studio was announced, Might and Delight, based around a small group of the GRIN team that worked on Bionic Commando Rearmed. A third studio with former GRIN employees, Whiteout, was announced in August 2010.

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