Black Widow Games was a

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 ...

specializing in promotional

mod Mod, MOD or mods may refer to: Places * Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band * M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...

s for '' Quake'' and ''

Half-Life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ato ...

'' 3D

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

s. They are best known for their ''They Hunger'' series. Prominent members included Neil Manke (game and level design), Einar Saukas (game design and coding), and Magnus Jansén (game consultant and sound engineer). The company business model is based on developing contract-work

s for the marketing campaigns of customer companies and products (such as the S.O.F. TV series from

Rysher Entertainment Rysher Entertainment, Inc. was an American film and television production company and distributor. It has its roots dating back to 1949 as Bing Crosby Productions, and was best known for the sitcom ''Hogan's Heroes'' and the medical drama ''Ben ...

and the movie ''

Underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

'' from

Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio Conglomerate (company), conglom ...

), freely distributed for promotion.
Black Widow Games
''.

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

. Retrieved 24 November 2008.

History

Founded in 1997 to produce contractual mods for state of the art 3D game engines, Black Widow Games would release 14 games between their first mod, ''Soldier Of Fortune'' (created for

), and 2003.Bernekärr, Magnus.
Skapandet av en Flygfarkost
''. Luleå Tekniska Universitet - Institution i Skellefteå. Datorgrafik. 2007:305. Notable releases included the ''

Half Life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...

'' spin-off, ''

USS Darkstar This is a list of GoldSrc mods ( modifications) for the video game ''Half-Life''. The list is divided into two categories: clientside and serverside mods. These terms do not necessarily indicate whether each mod can be run on multiplayer serve ...

'' (produced for

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games ma ...

), and the ''They Hunger'' series (produced for

). ''They Hunger'' in particular generated extensive player discussion and was considered an example of good gameplay within the realm of ''Half-Life'' mods. In October 2005, the company declared it was not possible anymore to produce full-fledged

single player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the course of the gaming session. A single-player game is usually a game that can only be played by one person, while "single-player mode" is usuall ...

s working on low budget promotional projects within reduced development cycles, because of the higher level of detail required for modern 3D

s. At this time, the company revealed it had been secretly developing for almost a year its first commercial game ''They Hunger: Lost Souls'', based on the ''

Half-Life 2 ''Half-Life 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was published by Valve through its distribution service Steam. Like the original ''Half-Life'' (1998), ''Half-Life 2'' combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and ...

Source engine Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the release of '' Counter-Strike: Source'' and '' Half-Life 2''. Updates to Source were released in incremental versions, with the engine being su ...

, a successor to their popular ''Half-Life''

survival horror Survival horror is a subgenre of survival of the players as the game tries to frighten them with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical ac ...

mod, ''They Hunger'', which Black Widow Software had created in 1999 and released as a bonus with copies of the

magazine. It would feature a plotline revolving around a zombie outbreak in

Northeastern Europe Northeastern Europe may refer to: * the Baltic region * a part of Europe centered on Finland including neighboring territories * Northwest Russia Northwest Russia, or the Russian North is the northern part of western Russia. It is bounded by Nor ...

in the 1960s. Apart from a detailed plotline and a few developers' screenshots, however, little information has been released about the game since 2005. Sparse updates have been published over the years at the company's official website and in a few specialized game magazines, and the final product is expected to be released via

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 ...

. Drawing some comparisons to

vaporware In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware) is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is late or never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled. Use of the word has broade ...

titles,

Planet Half-Life Planet Half-Life (often abbreviated to ''PHL'') is a gaming website owned by IGN and its subsidiary GameSpy. Maintained by a voluntary team of contributors, the site is dedicated to providing news and information about ''Half-Life (video game), Ha ...

announced (as a joke) on

April 1 Events Pre-1600 * 33 – According to one historian's account, Jesus Christ's Last Supper is held. * 527 – Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne. *1081 – Alexios I Kom ...

, 2007 that ''They Hunger: Lost Souls'' had again been redesigned and was set for release as a

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

game. In November 2008, the developers of the ''

Sven Co-op ''Sven Co-op'' is a co-op variation of the 1998 first-person shooter ''Half-Life''. The game, initially released as a mod in January 1999, and created by Daniel "Sven Viking" Fearon, enables players to play together on online servers to complete ...

announced that they had been working with Black Widow Games to develop a co-op version of ''They Hunger'', which was later released as an addon to be played in the mod in December 2008.Fearon, Daniel.
Sven Co-op 4.0B + They Hunger Co-op Beta RELEASED!!!
''.

. 24 December 2008.

Releases

Mods

*Jan. 1997: ''Dark Night'' ( Quake

multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

) *Feb. 1997: ''Outpost'' (Quake multiplayer mod) *Mar. 1997: ''Monastery'' (Quake multiplayer mod) *Apr. 1997: ''SlaughterHouse'' (Quake multiplayer mod) *Jul. 1997: ''Alba 1'' (Quake multiplayer mod) *Jul. 1997: ''Alba 2'' (Quake multiplayer mod) *Aug. 1997: ''Starship'' (Quake multiplayer mod) *Nov. 1997: ''Starship II'' (Quake multiplayer mod) *1997: ''Silhouette Of Darkness'' (Quake multiplayer mod) *''Special Ops Force: Deathmatch'' (

Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake (series), ''Quake'' series, but not a direct sequel to ''Quake (video game), Quake''. The game ...

multiplayer mod) *''SlaughterShip'' (Quake II

mod) *''They Hunger Deathmatch 1-5'' (

multiplayer mods) *2003: ''Abandoned Factory'' (Half-Life multiplayer mod)

Contract-work mods

*Oct. 1997: ''Soldier of Fortune'' (Quake single player mod for

based on the television series ''

Soldier of Fortune, Inc. ''Soldier of Fortune, Inc.'' is an American action-adventure television series which ran in syndication from 1997 to 1998, about an elite team (composed of mostly former military personnel) who performed "unofficial" missions for the U.S. Gove ...

'') *Dec. 1997: ''Soldier of Fortune: Deathmatch'' (Quake multiplayer mod for Rysher Entertainment) *Apr. 1998: ''Soldier of Fortune: Mission 2'' (Quake II single player mod for Rysher Entertainment) *Jul. 1998: ''Coconut Monkey: Paradise Lost'' (Quake II single player mod for

) *Sep. 1998: ''Special Ops Force: Mission 3 -- Desert Bloom'' (Quake II single player mod for Rysher Entertainment serving as a continuation of the ''Soldier of Fortune'' series upon the renaming of the original series by Rysher) *Oct. 1998: ''Coconut Monkey: Dry Gulch'' (Quake II single player mod for PC Gamer) *Dec. 1998: ''Special Ops Force: Mission 4 -- Cold as Ice'' (Quake II single player mod for Rysher Entertainment) *Jan. 1999: ''Coconut Monkey: Saving Private Monkey'' (Quake II single player mod for PC Gamer) *Aug. 1999: ''

'' (Half-Life single player mod for PC Gamer) *Feb. 2000: ''They Hunger'' (Half-Life single player mod for PC Gamer) *Sep. 2000: ''They Hunger 2: Rest in Pieces'' (Half-Life single player mod for PC Gamer) *Nov. 2000: ''Vidar's Niflheim'' (Half-Life multiplayer TFC map for CNET Gamecenter ater updated to ''Vidar's Niflheim 2'' *Jun. 2001: ''They Hunger 3: Rude Awakening'' (Half-Life single player mod for PC Gamer) *Sep. 2003: '' Underworld: Bloodline'' (Half-Life multiplayer mod for

and Big Spaceship LLC based on the ''

'' film series)

Skin work

*''Female Player Model for Counter-Strike'' (Half-Life multiplayer CS model) *''HK G36 Model'' (Half-Life multiplayer CS model) *''HK PDW Model'' (Half-Life multiplayer CS model) *''M16 w M203 Model'' (Half-Life multiplayer CS model) *''M82A1 Barrett .50 cal Model'' (Half-Life multiplayer CS model) *''They Hunger Multiplayer Models Pack'' (Half-Life multiplayer They Hunger models)

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Official Black Widow Games website

Black Widow Games mods website

Black Widow Games entry
at

Advergaming companies Video game development companies