nStigate Games (formerly Nihilistic Software) was an American

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in Novato, California.

History

Nihilistic was founded in March 1998 by Ray Gresko, Robert Huebner, and Steve Tietze. Gresko and Huebner had formerly worked at LucasArts, and Tietze had worked at

Rogue Entertainment Rogue Entertainment was an American computer game developer based in Dallas, Texas, which was active in the late 1990s. It was founded by Rich Fleider, Steve Maines, and Jim Molinets in 1994. Rogue Entertainment's office was in the same buildin ...

. Many of Nihilistic's employees were drawn from LucasArts, working on games such as '' Jedi Knight''. The first game produced by Nihilistic was '' Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption'', set in a role-playing world created by White Wolf. Released in 2000, ''Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption'' was published by Activision for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and Apple Macintosh computers. For their next project, Nihilistic began to develop '' StarCraft: Ghost'', supervised by ''StarCraft'' creator Blizzard Entertainment. In mid-2004, Nihilistic ceased working on'' StarCraft: Ghost'', although the circumstances behind this are not entirely clear. The project was taken up by

Swingin' Ape Studios ''Metal Arms: Glitch in the System'' is a third-person shooter action-adventure video game, developed by American team Swingin' Ape Studios, published by Vivendi Universal Games and their subsidiary Sierra Entertainment and released in 2003. The g ...

, which was later bought by Blizzard. Finally in March 2006, Blizzard Entertainment announced that ''StarCraft: Ghost'' was placed on indefinite hold. Meanwhile, in 2005, Nihilistic completed development on '' Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects'', a fighting game based on Marvel Comics' various superheroes. ''Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects'' was published by Electronic Arts, for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

, Xbox and

GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the Wii ...

. Nihilistic released their first 'next-gen' title, '' Conan'' for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game consoles. According to a preview article in the March 2007 issue of '' Game Informer'', ''Conan'' is an action/adventure game based on

Robert E. Howard Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906June 11, 1936) was an American writer. He wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subge ...

's famous

sword and sorcery Sword and sorcery (S&S) is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of romance, magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tale ...

hero, Conan the Barbarian. This title was released by the publisher THQ on October 23, 2007. In the fall of 2009, Konami published Nihilistic Software's first downloadable game, '' Zombie Apocalypse'' on

Xbox Live The Xbox network, formerly and still sometimes branded as Xbox Live, is an Internet, online multiplayer video game, multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. It was first made available to the Xbox ...

for the Xbox 360 and on the

PlayStation Network PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smartp ...

for the PlayStation 3. ''Zombie Apocalypse'' is multiplayer, arcade-style dual stick shooter with zombies as the opponent. They developed ''

PlayStation Move Heroes ''PlayStation Move Heroes'', known in Japan as ''Gachinko Heroes'' (ガチンコヒーローズ ''Gachinko Hīrōzu'', ''Hardcore Heroes''), is a 2011 action-adventure video game developed by Nihilistic Software and published by Sony Computer Ent ...

'' for the PlayStation 3 (for the PlayStation Move) which was released in March 2011. On May 29, 2012, Nihilistic released '' Resistance: Burning Skies'' for the

PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international territo ...

. On October 17, 2012, Nihilistic reorganized their business to focus on mobile gaming, changing their name to nStigate. On November 13, 2012, nStigate released '' Call of Duty: Black Ops – Declassified'' for the Vita. The game was widely panned critically for poor design and crippling technical problems. The company announced that they'd began to restructure the studio once more and announced that they’d be focusing on developing digital and mobile titles, yet due to the failure of Declassified the company was unable to reach any agreements with major companies and would be forced to close the following month.

Games

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
via Internet Archive Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Companies based in Marin County, California Video game companies established in 1998 Video game companies disestablished in 2012 1998 establishments in California 2012 disestablishments in California Novato, California