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Runic Games was a Seattle-based video game developer formed by Travis Baldree (creator of Fate), Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer (co-founders of Blizzard North), Peter Hu, and the Flagship Studios Seattle team responsible for Mythos.[1] It was responsible for the creation of the Torchlight game series. The studio was shut down in November, 2017.[2]

History[]

Mythos[]

The team that would become Runic Games was originally Flagship Studios Seattle, a branch of the now-defunct company that was developing Mythos, an action RPG MMO which had started as a simple network test. This group was led by designer/programmer Travis Baldree, and was largely separate from the main San Francisco branch of Flagship that developed Hellgate: London.

Mythos went though a series of closed alpha and beta tests during 2007-2008, gaining an enthusiastic fanbase and supporters among the gaming press. The game was approaching open beta in the summer of 2008. However, Flagship Studios suffered financial disaster and was forced to shut down. All of its intellectual property and resources fell into the hands of Flagship's former financial partner HanbitSoft, a major Korean online gaming corporation. Years later, an re-made version of Mythos was launched by HanbitSoft and their partners RedBana and Frogster.

Founding[]

Days after the shutdown of their company, the Mythos team met, and all 14 members signed on to develop a new action role-playing game as a spiritual successor to their previous project.[3][4]

Runic Games was formed in on August 11, 2008 by Travis Baldree, Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer and Peter Hu.[5] Full production on the game that would become Torchlight started around November 2008, meaning that the game's total development period was only about 11 months.

Disbandment[]

Runic Games was shut down by Perfect World Entertainment in November 2017. In a statement, Perfect World clarified that it would continue to sell Runic's games.[6]

Legacy[]

Max Schaefer went on to found Echtra Games, the developer of Torchlight Frontiers.

Games[]

References[]

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