Larian

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Larian Studios is a Belgian game developer which was founded in 1996^[1] by Swen Vincke who derived its' name from his dog, Pilar^[2]. It currently focuses on developing Computer Role-Playing and educational games, apart from LEDWars ^[3] which is a hardcore strategy game and a number of casino games(more references needed)^[4]

Larian's first project was called LMK(The Lady, The Mage and the Knight). However, they were unable to gain the recognition of any publishers as none believed they were capable of creating a game.^[5] In order to rectify this and to prove them wrong, LEDWars(a strategy game) was developed within 5 months and published by Ionos in 1997. ^[6] As a result, LMK soon evolved into a collaborative project between Larian Studios and Attic Entertainment. Due to various problems between the 2 development studios which resulted in a split, this project was later abandoned in 1999. ^[7]

In 2002, Larian completed work on Divinity: Sword of Lies which was then published under the name Divine Divinity by CDV ^[8]. In 2004, Beyond Divinity, expansion to Divine Divinity was published under 2 editions: the standard version by Ubisoft Entertainment GmbH ^[9] and the deluxe version by MediaMix Benelux which contained Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity and a novella by Rhianna Pratchett called "Son of Chaos".^[10]

In the same year(2004), KetnetKick(an educational and the first PC2TV game ever created) was developed for Ketnet and released by Transposia. ^[11]. In 2006, Beyond Divinity was re-released under Gold Games 9 by Ubisoft Entertainment SA which was a set of 9 games on 6 DVDs. ^[12]

As of 2008, Larian is still working on the sequel to Divine Divinity which is currently titled "Next-gen game" and is scheduled to be released on the PS3, the XBox 360 and the PC^[13].

Larian Studios can be found at http://www.larian.com

Games created by Larian Studios^{[14] [15]}

• LED Wars
• The Lady, The Mage and The Knight(a collaborative effort with Attic Productions, which failed and was later abandoned)
• Divine Divinity
• Beyond Divinity
• KetnetKick]
• Next-gen game(yet to be published, name yet to be revealed)

[edit] References