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Atari Shuts Down Legend Entertainment?

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the tough-times dept.

MachDelta writes "Yet another talented PC game studio has closed their doors today. Shacknews is reporting that Legend Entertainment, most commonly known for their work on Wheel of Time, Unreal 2, and Unreal 2: XMP, has been shut down by Atari. Though nothing official has been announced by either Legend or Atari, insider reports have confirmed that the sad news is indeed true. Losing Black Isle was hard enough, but now Legend? It raises the question: Who's next?" Update: 01/18 04:34 GMT by S : ShackNews has a messageboard post by Legend designer Glen Dahlgren seeming to confirm the closure.

1 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Legend's Old Days by ReyTFox · · Score: 3, Informative

    Before they ever did Wheel of Time, they were an adventure game house. Steve Meretzky was one of the great names, and came there from Infocom IIRC.

    Their first games were basically text games dragged into the 90s kicking and screaming, by letting you play using both verb/object bars, or just typing in your commands like usual. Small still images and BGM tracks constituted the technical advances.

    That might sound bad, but the games were good, especially the later ones. The asthetic essentials of descriptive text and vibrant environments were never left out.

    I think Legend's two main problems were:

    1. It got stuck in FPS games after WOT was a success. Its core strength, after all, was originally in adventures.

    2. It got sucked into the folds of a large game company. When a developer reaches that position, it seems like death is inevitable.