The Behemoth is an American

video game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC a ...

company that was created in 2003 by John Baez, artist Dan Paladin, and programmers

Tom Fulp Thomas Charles Fulp (born April 30, 1978) is an American programmer known for creating the website Newgrounds and co-founding the video game company The Behemoth. He has been credited with "changing the landscape of the Internet forever" by kic ...

, Brandon LaCava, and Nick Dryburgh. Dryburgh and LaCava later left the company. The Behemoth development studio is located in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

. The company is known for producing simple games with Paladin's signature 2D style. Its games are also known for their heavy arcade inspirations, especially among their early games, emulating genres common on the

Neo Geo Neo Geo is a family of video game hardware developed by SNK. On the market from 1990 to 2004, the brand originated with the release of an arcade system, the Neo Geo MVS and its home console counterpart, the Neo Geo AES. The Neo Geo MVS was su ...

in particular (which Tom Fulp is a noted fan of).

History

During August 2002, Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin collaborated in creating the Flash game ''

Alien Hominid ''Alien Hominid'' is an independently developed run and gun video game developed by The Behemoth. The game was developed from an Adobe Flash game originally released on Newgrounds in August 2002. O3 Entertainment released the game for PlayStation ...

'' for

Newgrounds Newgrounds is an entertainment website and company founded by Tom Fulp in 1995. It hosts user-generated content such as games, films, audio, and artwork. Fulp produces in-house content at the headquarters and offices in Glenside, Pennsylvania. I ...

. The game has since become extremely popular and generated over twenty million hits. Later in the year, Paladin was working on developing a console video game when co-worker Baez approached him. He was a fan of Alien Hominid and asked Paladin if he was interested in developing the game for consoles. When Baez offered to produce the game, Fulp and Paladin eventually agreed, recruited LaCava and Dryburgh, and formed The Behemoth in 2003. Several details in their games reveal a connected universe between all of them. Their first

console Console may refer to: Computing and video games * System console, a physical device to operate a computer ** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device ** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...

game, ''

'', gained critical acclaim by the media and the members of The Behemoth quickly gained status as

indie Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Gaming *Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies *Indie game, any game (board ...

developers focused on bringing old-school styles of video games back into mainstream gaming. Some of the minigames from ''Alien Hominid'' were ported to

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

in 2011. The Behemoth's second game, ''

Castle Crashers ''Castle Crashers'' is a 2D side scrolling hack-and-slash video game developed by The Behemoth. It features music created by members of Newgrounds. The Xbox 360 version was released on August 27, 2008, via Xbox Live Arcade as part of the Xbox L ...

'', was released August 27, 2008, originally for the

Xbox Live Arcade Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) is a digital video game download service available through the Xbox Games Store, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360. It focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent ...

service, eventually re-releasing for the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

on August 31, 2010, and

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 ...

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

on September 26, 2012. Since its release on Xbox Live Arcade, ''Castle Crashers'' has become one of the most downloaded games, with over 2.6 million copies sold as of year-end 2011. A third title, '' BattleBlock Theater'', was released on April 3, 2013 on Xbox Live Arcade. The Windows, Linux, and macOS versions of '' BattleBlock Theater'' were released on Steam on May 15, 2014. ''

Pit People ''Pit People'' is an action role-playing strategy video game by indie game developer The Behemoth. An early access version for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One was released in January 2017 and the full version was released March 2018. Developmen ...

'', is a turn-based strategy game that was released for early access on

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

and was released for Xbox One on January 13, 2017. It was released on March 2, 2018. The Behemoth had long teased a "Game 5", which was announced in January 2020 as ''Alien Hominid Invasion'', which the developers said was not a remake or remaster of the original ''Alien Hominid'' but introduces new mechanics as an arcade shooter.

Games

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Behemoth, The 2003 establishments in California Companies based in San Diego American companies established in 2003 Video game companies established in 2003 Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Indie video game developers Privately held companies based in California