14 DAY TRIAL // The independent PC games developer, Troika Games, closed its doors for good. The explanation come in an e-mail from joint-CEO and founder Leon Boyarsky: "As many of you may have already heard, Troika has laid off all of its employees and is closing its doors due to our inability to secure funding for future projects"
This e-mail was cosigned by Tim Cain and Jason Anderson. These three designers were the front of the team who has created a legendary game, Fallout, which was developed and published by Interplay, once a mighty game company, which lately seems to become defunct itself.
Before the release of Fallout 2, those three designers founded Troika Games, a studio game centered on RPG games.
The most important title form Troika, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was released last year, competing at that time with Half Life 2. But the gamers were not so enthusiastic about the game; even the storyline and the universe proposed by Bloodlines were appreciated. The game ended up with a rating of 7.7 from GameSpot. Even the game was not so bad, the success was not enough to keep the financial status of the studio. The others two games previously released by Troika, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura in 2001 and The Temple of Elemental Evil had the same fate.
Another project of Troika Games, Fallout 3, was closed when Bethesda Softworks acquired the Fallout license last year.
The first rumour about Troika Games closing the business appeared at the beginning of February when Andrew Meggs, lead programmer for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, has posted online a list with a number of companies where ex-Troika developers had found work, including Activision, Day One Studios, Mythic Entertainment, Obsidian Entertainment, Point of View, Seven Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Swingin' Ape, Turtle Rock, and Treyarch
For now, according to Boyarsky e-mail, is not certain if the Troika Games will not be resurrected in the future.