The Black Isle logo
Black Isle Studios was the game development studio that created the Icewind Dale game and developed/published several related titles.
History[]
It was not an independent company, but rather a division of Interplay, where it was created in 1996 by Feargus Urquhart.
The studio was closed down in 2003, due to its parent company's financial troubles – cancelling all work-in-progress projects and laying off all staff.
Five of the Black Isle veterans (including Feargus Urquhart) then founded the company Obsidian Entertainment, and acquired several of their former colleagues as employees. For this reason, Obsidian is sometimes called the "spiritual successor" to Black Isle Studios.
Game releases[]
As publisher[]
The titles from the BioWare-developed Baldur's Gate series varyingly list Black Isle Studios, and/or its parent company Interplay, as the publisher.
As developer[]
Black Isle Studios themselves developed the following Infinity Engine based titles:
| Title | Year | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Planescape: Torment | 1999 | game |
| Icewind Dale | 2000 | game |
| Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter | 2001 | expansion |
| Icewind Dale: Trials of the Luremaster | 2001 | expansion |
| Icewind Dale II | 2002 | game |
In addition, they also developed Fallout 2 and the console game Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II.
Canceled games[]
The studio worked on several projects that were canceled due to financial troubles, and therefore never brought to release.
The most famous of these projects was Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound, which was supposed to be a sequel to Baldur's Gate II. It was in development for a year and a half, but canceled when the studio was shut down in 2003.
External links[]
- Black Isle Studios article on Wikipedia
- Black Isle article on the Baldur's Gate Wiki, a wiki for the Baldur's Gate games.
- Black Isle Studios article on the Fallout Wiki, a wiki for the Fallout games
- Black Isle Studios article on the Forgotten Realms Wiki, a wiki for the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Forgotten Realms