Crate Entertainment is an independent video game developer based in Massachusetts. The company was officially launched on February 18, 2008 by former members of Iron Lore Entertainment .
Crate entertainment | |
---|---|
Type of | Video game developer |
Base | 02/18/2008 |
Former names | Iron lore entertainment |
Founders | Brian Sullivan, Paul Chiff |
Location | Massachusetts |
Industry | |
Products | ARPG Grim Dawn |
Site |
history of the company
After Iron Lore Entertainment was unable to secure funding for its next project, former Iron Lore members announced the creation of a new company on February 18, 2008. A few days later, the company announced that it would work as a contractor for Demiurge Studios, providing artistic and design leadership in one of the company's projects.
On August 19, 2008, Crate announced the acquisition of the intellectual property of Black Legion (one of the versions of the 40,000 Warhammer desktop) that was being developed at Iron Lore before the studio closed. Black Legion attracted considerable interest from publishers during the Black Legion pitching at the end of 2007, but could not interest it enough to close the publishing deal. Kreit hoped to receive funding for the development of the Black Legion, but because of the economic downturn in the United States, publishers decided to abandon a large project for the studio.
On July 27, 2009, Crate announced that it had acquired a license to use the Iron Lore Titan Quest game engine for its new role-playing game project. On January 21, 2010, Crate announced that their new project would be called Grim Dawn .
On April 18, 2012, Crate Entertainment presented updated information on the Grim Dawn Kickstarter page, which revealed that the company’s staff consists of only two employees, while the work done is provided by former Iron Lore employees when necessary and on time.
After the success of the Kickstarter campaign (where Crate received almost twice as much, the project scored $ 537,515), Crate were able to hire additional staff, some of whom were former employees of 38 studios already defunct at that time. This allowed Crate to significantly speed up game development, and Grim Dawn alpha (Build 8) was released on May 15, 2013. On November 5, 2013, the game was released on Steam Early Access. In June 2015, Crate announced that they had hired Eric Sexton, a former Blizzard North artist and designer, saying that his role was primarily about creating the world and writing the lore for the game.
The release of Grim Dawn took place on February 25, 2016 and received high marks from critics and ordinary gamers. On August 3, 2016, a survival mode called "The Crucible (Crucible)" was released, where players fight waves of enemies in several arenas. An extension for the game called “Ashes of Malmouth” was released on October 11, 2017, adding two more acts to the game, as well as two more classes: the Inquisitor and the Necromancer. On March 5, 2018, Crate announced the second expansion for a game called “Forgotten Gods,” which was released March 27, 2019.
Live on the dev stream on Twitch on April 19, 2019, Crate announced that Forgotten Gods had sold more than 100,000 copies, and more than 3 million copies sold in total between all DLCs and the base game Grim Dawn.