hero-engine posts

Second Star Interactive, a new game development studio founded by a number of industry veterans, has just been revealed. The studio, based in Northern Virginia, was created by Idea Fabrik, a Germany-based company that in 2010 bought the HeroEngine game development tools business in 2010. The team is lead by Darrin Hyrup, a founder and former executive at Mythic Entertainment. Other team members have come from Sony Online, Electronic Arts and other developers.

The Second Star Interactive team will naturally be using the HeroEngine for its games with the first one, as of yet unrevealed, currently due out by the end of 2011.

The company who runs both a game development company and a game engine division is reorganizing. Nope we are not talking about Epic Games, Valve, or Crytek but Simutronics, the makers of the MMO-themed HeroEngine. Today Simultronics announced they will now have two truly separate divisions, HeroEngine and Simutronics Games.

While Simutronics Games is moving on to making games for social networks and the iPhone, HeroEngine will continue to expand and develop its engine for use by third parties, mainly for MMO game projects. It's highest profile game is BioWare's upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's also being used by ZeniMax Online Studios for the basis of their still unannounced MMO game project. Simultronics states it has secured even more HeroEngine license deals for a variety of unnamed projects including "a multi-title deal with a US publisher" and "stealth-mode projects from startups and major studios in China, Europe and the US."

The MMO industry continues to grow like kudzu in a North Carolina field. The latest company to announce their presance in the genre is Las Vegas based HSC Labs and this week it was announced that the developer will use the Hero Engine as its graphics base.

The Hero Engine, created by Simutronics, has been licensed by a number of third party developers since it first became available a few years ago (including BioWare's Austin office for their upcoming and unnamed MMO). This new agreement with the newcomer HSC Labs helps the developer to create and release its first MMO game which is currently scheduled for release for the winter of 2011. Details on HSC Lab's first game have not been announced.