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Cryo Interactive - Definition and Overview |
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Cryo Interactive Entertainment was a French video game developing company that appeared in the early 1990s. It was started up by Philippe Ulrich, Rémi Herbulot and Jean-Martial Lefranc, who renamed their former company Exxos in 1992. The first game developed by Cryo was the hit Dune, which granted the newly-formed software company both publicity and funding for further games under Virgin until 1996, when Cryo started self-publishing (usually never venturing outside the European market).
Cryo made their name mostly on adaptations of already existing stories (such as Riverworld, based on Philip José Farmer's novel and Ubik by Philip K. Dick) or those based on historical scenarios (like KGB, a game set days before the collapse of the Soviet Union and several games based on Ancient Egypt, Qing Dynasty's China and Louis XIV's France, developed with Cryo's Omni3D engine). Altough most of the post-Virgin games managed to capture and stay true to the original settings, poor interfaces and the lack of worldwide distribution turned little profit from each game. In 2002, not long after Frank Herbert's Dune flopped, Cryo's situation was no longer sustainable, and the company was declared bankrupt.
Published titles
- Dune
- Mystical
- KGB
- Extase
- Lost Eden
- Commander Blood and its sequel Big bug bang
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- Ubik
- Dragon Lore
- Ring
- Versailles
- Hellboy
Former company subsidiaries
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