Black Isle Studios

Black Isle Studios
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryVideo games
Founded1996; 28 years ago (1996)
FounderFeargus Urquhart
SuccessorObsidian Entertainment
Headquarters,
Key people
Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, Josh Sawyer, Darren Monahan, Chris Parker
ParentInterplay Entertainment
Websitewww.blackisle.com at the Wayback Machine (archived November 5, 2014) [a]

Black Isle Studios is a division of the developer and publisher Interplay Entertainment formed in 1996 that develops role-playing video games. It has published several games from other developers.

Black Isle is based in Irvine, California.[1] The idea for the division's name came from the Black Isle in Scotland – founder Feargus Urquhart's ancestral country.[2] Black Isle Studios is most famous for its work on the Fallout series as well as the critically acclaimed Planescape: Torment. They achieved success with the Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate series of role-playing video games, though they only published the Baldur's Gate series. In 1999, IGN's RPG Vault gave it the award for a Developer of the Year.[3] The company was closed in late 2003 due to Interplay's financial troubles.[4]

Interplay briefly revived the Black Isle name in August 2012 with the intention of producing new role-playing games under that label.[5][6] Black Isle Studios released Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance remastered in May 2021.[7]


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  1. ^ "Black Isle Studios". IGN. Archived from the original on May 25, 2011. Retrieved July 25, 2006.
  2. ^ Keefer, John (January 2001). "Black Isle Studios: We are not BioWare". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 2004-12-11. Retrieved 2006-06-25.
  3. ^ 1999 Vault Network Awards
  4. ^ Thorsen, Tor (2003-12-08). "Interplay shuts down Black Isle Studios". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 2006-06-13. Retrieved May 1, 2006.
  5. ^ Sarkar, Samit (8 August 2012). "Black Isle Studios is back in name only". Polygon. Archived from the original on 22 July 2022. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  6. ^ "Games – Page 83 – Black Gate". 23 October 2012. Archived from the original on 3 July 2023. Retrieved 3 July 2023.
  7. ^ "Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 Re-Release is "On the Table" – Black Isle Studios". Archived from the original on 2022-07-22. Retrieved 2021-05-12.