Tantalus Media Pty Ltd.
Moby ID: 1761
- Tantalus Interactive Pty. Ltd. (from 1994 to 2007)
- Tantalus Entertainment (from 1994 to 1996)
Overview edit · view history
Tantalus Interactive Ptd. Ltd. was established in 1994 in Melbourne, Australia. The company worked on every major platform since the SNES, and often with established licenses such as SpongeBob SquarePants and the Olson twins. They started as a conversion house, adapting coin-op titles to console and PC (e.g. Manx TT SuperBike), and designing a cross-platform engine. They later starting porting between consoles, converting WipeOut (PSX) to other platforms, and working on Unreal II for the Xbox.
Their first original title was South Park Rally, completed for four platforms in just 7 months. Their first handheld game was ATV: Quad Power Racing for the GameBoy Advance, and they released Space Race, their first PS2 game, the same year. They used two cross-platform engines: CRIS for handhelds, with skinned mesh rendering, and The Mercury Engine for new generation consoles. In its early years.
The developer’s best performing title was the 2007 girl’s horse riding simulator Pony Friends for the Nintendo DS which sold more than 1 million copies, making it the largest-selling single-format game developed in Australia.
During this time the companies in-house engine was updated to become Hydra, a multi-platform compiler and exporter that could export data from a single Maya file into multiple platforms.
In December 2008 Tantalus established an office in Brisbane at the time and across two offices employed just over 70 staff. During that time the studio worked on Disney•Pixar Cars: Race-O-Rama and MX vs ATV Reflex for the DS and PSP, as well as Pony Friends 2 for the Wii and DS. Shortly after the completion of Cars: Race-O-Rama (DS) in 2009 the Brisbane studio started work on the company's first digitally distributed title Drift Street International for the DSi. Meanwhile the Melbourne office worked on Megamind: The Blue Defender for PSP and DS, while also prototyping demos for 360, iPhone, and PS3.
During the last half of 2009, due to a shift in the games industry in Australia, Tantalus Media closed its Brisbane office, while also making much of the staff in the Melbourne office redundant. During the first half of 2010 the company was reduced to a staff of under 18. At a time when many Australian development studios were closing Tantalus seemed to weather the storm.
In the early 2010s, the company would focus on titles for the Nintendo DS, Sony PSP and iPhone/iPad. Since the latter half of the 2010s, they were mainly involved with ports and remasters of other studios' titles, most notably Stellaris, the Definitive Editions of the Age of Empires series, Cities: Skylines, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and others.
On 18 March 2021, they were acquired by Keywords Studios.
Credited on 56 Games from 1995 to 2024
Displaying most recent · View all
Cities: Skylines - Stadia Edition (2022 on Stadia) |
Age of Empires IV (2021 on Windows, Windows Apps, Xbox One...) |
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition (2020 on Windows, Windows Apps) |
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (2019 on Windows, Windows Apps, Xbox One...) |
Jupiter & Mars (2019 on PlayStation 4, Quest) |
Cities: Skylines - Nintendo Switch Edition (2018 on Nintendo Switch) |
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition (2018 on Windows, Windows Apps) |
Sonic Mania (2017 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One...) |
RiME (2017 on Windows, Windows Apps, PlayStation 4...) |
Cities: Skylines - PlayStation 4 Edition (2017 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows Apps) |
Stellaris (2016 on Linux, Windows, Macintosh...) |
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (2013 on Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch) |
Funky Barn 3D (2012 on Wii U, Nintendo 3DS) |
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011 on Wii, Wii U, Nintendo Switch) |
Ben 10: Galactic Racing (2011 on Nintendo DS) |
Megamind: The Blue Defender (2010 on Nintendo DS, PSP) |
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010 on Nintendo DS) |
Drift Street International (2010 on Nintendo DSi) |
MX vs ATV Reflex (2009 on Nintendo DS) |
MX vs ATV Reflex (2009 on PSP) |
[ view all ]
History +
- March 18, 2021
-
Company acquired by Keywords Studios.
- 1994
-
Company founded.
Related Web Sites +
-
Tantalus Media Pty Ltd.
official site
Frequent Collaborators
Companies- 12 games with THQ Inc.
- 6 games with Shin'en Multimedia GmbH
- 5 games with Psygnosis Limited
- 5 games with Microsoft Corporation
- 5 games with Paradox Interactive AB
- 4 games with Xbox Game Studios
- 4 games with Nintendo Co., Ltd.
- 4 games with Acclaim Entertainment, Inc.
- 4 games with Relic Entertainment Inc
- 4 games with Atari, Inc.
- 31 games with Andrew Bailey
- 29 games with Tom Crago
- 25 games with Trevor Nuridin
- 21 games with John Szoke
- 19 games with Arthur Kakouris
- 16 games with John Zheng
- 15 games with Joss Ellis
- 14 games with David Giles
- 14 games with Rohan Westbury
- 14 games with David Lally
Browse Games
Contribute
Add your expertise to help preserve video game history! You can submit a correction or add the following: