Radical Entertainment is a video game developer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1991 and previously developed games for game publishers such as THQ, Microsoft and Fox Interactive. It is now an entirely owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard after being acquired by Vivendi Games in 2005.[1] The company is best known for developing Scarface: The World Is Yours, they gained more fame upon the releases of Crash Tag Team Racing, Crash of the Titans, Crash: Mind over Mutant and their first original title Prototype.
History
Radical Entertainment was founded by Dave Davis, Rory Armes and Ian Wilkinson. Davis and Armes previously worked at Vancouver based Distinctive Software (now EA Canada). Wilkinson was an enthusiastic newcomer to the games industry.
369 Interactive
Before being acquired by Vivendi Universal Games, Radical had developed various games for numerous publishers including Microsoft Game Studios, THQ and Fox Interactive. Although Radical was not a subsidiary of Vivendi till 2005, they did however develop a few of Vivendi Universal's titles including Hulk and The Simpsons Hit & Run.
A division of Radical Entertainment, 369 Interactive, developed games for Ubisoft. Namely video games based on the numerous CSI television shows. However, after developing a final game in 2005, 369 Interactive was cut from developing the games and was succeeded by TellTale Games. The reason they were cut is primarily because of Vivendi acquiring Radical.
369 was later deleted from Radical Entertainment themselves. Due to 369 having already developed games exclusively for Ubisoft, Radical being purchased by Vivendi thus nullified 369's reason for existence. As reported by a staff member of Radical Entertainment, the 369 Interactive employees were later merged into the main of Radical Entertainment themselves.
Activision
Radical Entertainment had developed a few titles for Vivendi Universal Entertainment, titles that gained massive success and warranted the company's interest in the developers. In 2005, Vivendi acquired Radical Entertainment, however, as described by a former developer at Radical, the mood did not change much and Radical still operated as an independent game developing company. After being acquired by Vivendi, Radical began to make many games such as Scarface: The World Is Yours and The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction while being published under Vivendi's Sierra Entertainment label. Radical was also given the license to continue development of the Crash Bandicoot franchise which was also published under Sierra Entertainment. Radical took over the development of Crash Tag Team Racing from Traveller's Tales. Due to the success of Crash Tag Team Racing, Radical then started the development of Crash of the Titans and proclaimed that "Crash was home at Radical" stating that Radical would develop all further Crash games. The critical and commercial success of Crash of the Titans spawned one more sequel, Crash: Mind over Mutant, which managed to both critically beat its predecessor as well as commercially. During the development of Crash: Mind Over Mutant, Radical began working on its first original IP, Prototype.
In 2008 it was announced that Vivendi Games and Activision would merge to form Activision Blizzard, a described by a former developer, the merger changed the mood of Radical and made it like a first-party developer, instead of indie. At the time of the merge Radical was working on 3 different projects, 1 was an 'unnamed project' and the other 2 were Crash: Mind Over Mutant and Prototype. After the merger took place, about half of Radical's staff was cut under Activision Blizzards restructuring. This resulted in the cancellation of the unnamed project while development of Crash and Prototype were unaffected. As revealed later by a former developer at Radical, the unnamed project was Scarface 2, which had been at development at Radical for over two years and had nearly gone gold, the developer stated that Activision canceled the project. Crash: Mind Over Mutant was the last games to be published under Vivendi's Sierra Entertainment label, however some rare editions are given the Activision label instead. Nevertheless, Activision is given credit within the video game. Prototype was published only underneath the Activision label.
After the release of Prototype in 2009 Radical did not officially announce any new projects, though it was revealed again by another former developer that Radical was working on another unnamed project, which had been in development for over a year. However, when Radical Entertainment experienced layoffs which resulted in over 60 people losing jobs, the project(Crash Bandicoot title) was development halted by Activision.[2] At the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards, Radical announced Prototype 2, which is set to be their largest game.
Prototype 2
Radical Entertainment released the first details for Prototype 2 in an interview with 'EGMI'. In the same interview they revealed that they halted the development on an unknown game, possibly the rumoured Crash Bandicoot title, after the massive success of Prototype. However, other canidates for the halted game were rumored to be an unknown Spider-Man game and a Jason Bourne game. This title was later revealed to be cancelled. [3] In January 2011, an artist posted video footage showing the cancelled Jason Bourne game called Treadstone.[4] The game was cancelled when the Bourne license was reacquired by Ludlum Entertainment[5] and then licensed to EA.[4] Crash: Mind Over Mutant was re-released on Xbox Live in 2011. [6] Radical celebrated its 20th birthday in late August, 2011. They revealed to have had sold over 30 Million copies from each of their games and is the third oldest studio owned by Activision. [7]
To celebrate the release of Prototype 2, Radical Entertainment revealed that to coincide, they would release RadNet. Similar to Call of Duty Elite, RadNet is an online gaming hub. RadNet contains competitive challenges which in turn give the player rewards for in-game use, Avatar accessories, development videos and Dnyamic themes. An iPhone game, Protoslice, was also released to coincide with the release of the game, the iPhone app had partial overseen development by Radical, whilst the actual game was not developed by them. [8]
Titanium Engine
After its acquisition by Vivendi, Radical began to use only one game engine, having used various game engines before. The game engine was based on an engine used previously by Radical Entertainment for Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and was named the Titanium Engine. The engine has been used for Radical's Crash Bandicoot and Prototype video games. The only game released using the engine not using those two IP's was the game based on the Scarface IP. [9]
CSI games
369 Interactive made use of Radical Entertainment's CSI licensed property.
369 Interactive has developed such games as:
Games developed
Activision
- Prototype 2 (2012)
- Treadstone (2011-Cancelled)
- Crash Bandicoot title (2010-Development Halted)
- Prototype (2009)
- Scarface 2 (2008-Cancelled by Activision)
Sierra Entertainment
Independent Company
See also
References
External links
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