 Logo used since 2022 | |
| Formerly |
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|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1992; 33 years ago (1992) |
| Founders | |
| Headquarters | , US |
Key people | Christopher Reese (studio director) |
| Products | |
Number of employees | 150+[1] (2022) |
| Parent |
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| Website | bendstudio.com |
Bend Studio (formerlyBlank, Berlyn & Co., Inc. andEidetic, Inc.) is an Americanvideo game developer based inBend, Oregon. Founded in 1992, the studio is best known for developingBubsy 3D, theSyphon Filter series, andDays Gone. Since 2000, Bend Studio is afirst-party developer forSony Interactive Entertainment underPlayStation Studios.
Marc Blank andMichael Berlyn founded Bend Studio as Blank, Berlyn & Co. in 1992.[2][3] Blank had been a founder and the product development director forInfocom, while Berlyn, an author ofadventure games, had previously worked at Infocom before moving toAccolade.[2] Blank was approached by a California company after an employee had usedCornerstone, a software package by Infocom, and remembered that the company also developed games. That company was looking to release a "sound-oriented game machine for cars", for which Blank suggested a series ofsports games that would sound like radio broadcasts. The project never went into production and Blank repurposed the idea for anAmerican football video game with an ambiance resembling a TV broadcast. In 1992, he pitched the idea to Berlyn, wondering whether Accolade would be interested in such a title.[2]
A few months after the 1993 release ofBubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, when Berlyn was on hiatus at Accolade, they began developing games under the Blank, Berlyn & Co. name. Blank became thepresident of the new company.[2] The company's first games were thepuzzle video gamesColumbo's Mystery Capers andDell Crossword Puzzles for theApple Newton. Both were released in November 1993 by StarCore,Apple's publishing label for the Newton.[4][5] Two further such games,Dell Crossword Puzzles and Other Word Games andMotile, followed by June 1994.[4] According to Arnie Katz ofElectronic Games, these releases proved Blank, Berlyn & Co. "tremendously successful".[2] Thereafter,Russ Wetmore, the developer ofPreppie! II, joined the developer after a seven-year tenure at Apple. They realized Blank's football game idea asLive Action Football usingScriptX, which allowed for a simultaneous release onMicrosoft Windows andMacintosh System Software. Accolade published the game in November 1994 as the first in a series of sports games that Blank, Berlyn & Co. was to develop for the publisher. The next of these was to be abaseball game.[2]
Following these releases, Blank, Berlyn & Co. looked to expand further, changing its name to Eidetic in April 1995 and recruitingtechnical director Christopher Reese.[3][6] Under the new name, Eidetic developedBubsy 3D with a team of approximately eight people. It was the studio's firstconsole game and first 3D game; Reese described the transition to 3D as "difficult". Released in 1996 for thePlayStation,Bubsy 3D was unsuccessful, which Reese attributed to its competition withCrash Bandicoot.[3] Thereafter,989 Studios, a division ofSony Computer Entertainment (SCE), approached Eidetic with a one-page pitch forSyphon Filter, anaction andstealth game.[7] According tocreative director John Garvin, who was hired during the game's development, SCE had had faith in Eidetic because it had experience in PlayStation development and already had an engine that the game could be built on.[3] The development ofSyphon Filter was difficult because Eidetic had no experience making a stealth-action game.[7] The company expanded to thirteen people, while Berlyn left the company due to his dissatisfaction with the state of thevideo game industry and the nature ofSyphon Filter.[3][8] Due to missing deadlines and making changes to the game's structure, story and mechanics,Syphon Filter was almost canceled several times. Despite the difficulties, 989 Studios producer Connie Booth had great faith in the project.Syphon Filter was released in 1999 and sold over one million units.[7]
Eidetic continued developingSyphon Filter games for SCE, creating six further until 2007, uninterrupted by any other release.[3] SCE acquired the studio in 2000, renaming it to Bend Studio.[9][10] Beyond theSyphon Filter series, Bend Studio wanted to develop games for a different franchise and decided to develop aResistance game for thePlayStation Portable due to similarities betweenResistance andSyphon Filter. Bend Studio create a demo for the game and showed it to SCE producers and the originalResistance developer,Insomniac Games, and was approved to begin development ofResistance: Retribution. After the game's 2009 release, Bend Studio dedicated nine employees toUncharted: Golden Abyss for thePlayStation Vita. After several ideas for the project were rejected by franchise developerNaughty Dog, the developer ultimately agreed to Bend Studio's vision and had the project approved. Bend Studio worked closely with Naughty Dog and was allowed to use all assets fromUncharted: Drake's Fortune andUncharted 2: Among Thieves.[3] Bend Studio also worked onUncharted: Fight for Fortune in conjunction with One Loop Games.[11]
Bend Studio's first originalintellectual property (IP) afterSyphon Filter wasDays Gone, released in April 2019 for thePlayStation 4.[12][10] Garvin and the game's director, Jeff Ross, left the studio by December 2020.[10] However, Garvin claims the company fired him for having "a disruptive personality".[13] Bend Studio has distanced itself from Garvin after his complaint onTwitter where he blamed "woke" reviewers for the middling critical reception ofDays Gone.[14] As of June 2021, the studio is working on a new IP that builds on the open-world systems fromDays Gone.[15] On June 7, 2022, Bend Studio unveiled their new logo.[16]
In January 2025, Sony cancelled alive-service game in development at Bend Studio.[17]
| Year | Title | Platform(s) | Publisher(s) | Ref(s). |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Columbo's Mystery Capers | Apple Newton | StarCore | [4][5] |
| Dell Crossword Puzzles | [4][5] | |||
| 1994 | Dell Crossword Puzzles and Other Word Games | [4] | ||
| Motile | [4] | |||
| Live Action Football | Classic Mac OS,Microsoft Windows | Accolade | [5] | |
| 1996 | Bubsy 3D | PlayStation | [3] | |
| 1999 | Syphon Filter | Sony Computer Entertainment | [3] | |
| 2000 | Syphon Filter 2 | [3] | ||
| 2001 | Syphon Filter 3 | [3] | ||
| 2004 | Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain | PlayStation 2 | [3] | |
| 2006 | Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror | PlayStation 2,PlayStation Portable | [3] | |
| 2007 | Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow | [3] | ||
| Syphon Filter: Combat Ops | PlayStation Portable | [3] | ||
| 2009 | Resistance: Retribution | [3] | ||
| 2011 | Uncharted: Golden Abyss | PlayStation Vita | [3] | |
| 2012 | Uncharted: Fight for Fortune | [11] | ||
| 2019 | Days Gone | Microsoft Windows,PlayStation 4,PlayStation 5 | Sony Interactive Entertainment | [12] |
Apple has shipped two applications for the Newton – Dell Crosswords Puzzles and Columbo's Mystery Capers, both developed by Blank, Berlyn & Co. under its StarCore label (which is Apple's publishing company for selling application software).
Eidetic, Inc. (which, until April of 1995, was still calling itself Blank, Berlyn & Co.) is a software developer.
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