# Interplay Productions - House: Game company - Date: Founded 1983 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/interplay/ > The Irvine house that gave the world The Bard's Tale, Wasteland and Fallout, then published Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment before collapsing under debt in the early 2000s. **Why it matters:** Interplay links the first great era of computer RPGs to the Infinity Engine renaissance: it made The Bard's Tale, created Fallout, founded Black Isle and published BioWare's Baldur's Gate. ## Quick answers **What is Interplay Productions?** The Irvine house that gave the world The Bard's Tale, Wasteland and Fallout, then published Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment before collapsing under debt in the early 2000s. **When was Interplay Productions founded?** Interplay Productions was founded in 1983 and is based in Irvine, California (now Los Angeles). **Who founded Interplay Productions?** Brian Fargo and Rebecca Heineman. **What is Interplay Productions known for?** The Bard's Tale, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate II. **What happened to Interplay Productions?** Went public in 1998; controlled by Titus Interactive from 1999–2001; sold Fallout to Bethesda in 2007. Survives in Los Angeles as a small company licensing and re-releasing its back catalog. ## History Interplay Productions began in October 1983 as a work-for-hire shop in Irvine, California. [Brian Fargo](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/brian-fargo/), [Rebecca Heineman](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/rebecca-heineman/), Jay Patel and Troy Worrell founded it with backing from investor Chris Wells, and their first contract was *Mindshadow*, a graphical text adventure for Activision. Fargo then recruited an old high-school friend, [Michael Cranford](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/michael-cranford/), to build a role-playing game for a new publisher called [Electronic Arts](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/electronic-arts/). The result, [The Bard's Tale](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-bards-tale/) (1985), turned the tiny team into one of the most important names in the young [computer RPG](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/computer-rpg/). Through the late 1980s Interplay produced the Bard's Tale sequels, the post-apocalyptic *Wasteland* (1988) and *Dragon Wars* (1989), all under the EA label. In 1988 Fargo turned the company into a publisher in its own right, starting with *Battle Chess* and *Neuromancer*, and two years later it released *J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I*, an early licensed attempt to put [The Lord of the Rings](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings/) on the home computer. In the mid-1990s MCA (later Universal) took a large minority stake, and Interplay grew into a publisher with hundreds of employees, publishing everything from *Descent* to *Star Trek* adventures to the Forgotten Realms game *Descent to Undermountain* (1997). That same year Interplay released *Fallout* (1997), a turn-based RPG that became its most celebrated original creation. Around it the company built an in-house RPG division, [Black Isle Studios](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/black-isle-studios/), led by [Feargus Urquhart](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/feargus-urquhart/), and signed a young Canadian developer, [BioWare](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bioware/), whose [Baldur's Gate](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate/) (1998) revived licensed [AD&D](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/advanced-dungeons-and-dragons/) on the PC. Success did not fix the balance sheet. Interplay went public on NASDAQ on June 19, 1998, at $5.50 a share; losses continued, and the Paris-based Titus Interactive invested from March 1999, holding 57% of the company by August 1999 and 72.5% by April 2001. BioWare ended its partnership in November 2001 over unpaid royalties. Fargo resigned on January 24, 2002, and Titus co-founder Hervé Caen became CEO. The company was delisted to over-the-counter trading, sold Shiny Entertainment, closed Black Isle on December 8, 2003, licensed *Fallout* to [Bethesda Softworks](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bethesda-softworks/) in 2004 and, to pay creditors, sold the franchise outright in April 2007. ## Notable work Interplay's fantasy legacy runs in two waves. The first is the 1980s party RPG: [The Bard's Tale](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-bards-tale/) and its sequels brought [first-person dungeon crawling](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/dungeon-crawler/) to a mass audience in the wake of [Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/), with the city of Skara Brae, a singing bard and a hand-drawn look that made the Apple II and Commodore 64 feel like windows into another world. Its early contracts even reached into the future of the industry: in 1991 Interplay published the first game by Fargo's friend Allen Adham and his partner Mike Morhaime, whose small studio would become [Blizzard Entertainment](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/blizzard-entertainment/): *RPM Racing*. The second wave is the late-1990s renaissance. As publisher, Interplay put out BioWare's [Baldur's Gate](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate/), [Baldur's Gate II](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate-ii/) (2000) and the console spin-off *Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance* (2001). Through Black Isle it released [Planescape: Torment](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/planescape-torment/) (1999), the talkiest and strangest RPG of its time, and [Icewind Dale](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/icewind-dale/) (2000), a combat-first descent into the frozen north of the [Forgotten Realms](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/forgotten-realms/). Together these games made the [Real-time with pause](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/real-time-with-pause/) [The party](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/party/) RPG the dominant PC form of the era. ## Legacy Few companies did more to shape the computer RPG and then lost so much of it. Interplay's people scattered into the studios that define the genre today: Fargo founded inXile Entertainment, which revived *Wasteland* and *The Bard's Tale*; Urquhart, [Chris Avellone](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/chris-avellone/) and colleagues founded [Obsidian Entertainment](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/obsidian-entertainment/); *Fallout* became one of Bethesda's pillars. BioWare's time with Interplay launched the line that leads to [Baldur's Gate 3](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate-3/). Interplay itself never closed. Under Hervé Caen it has survived as a small Los Angeles company that licenses and re-releases its catalog — it revived the Black Isle name in 2012, re-released *Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance* on modern consoles in 2021, and co-published *Kingpin: Reloaded* in 2023. Its logo on an old box remains a reliable sign of the golden age of Western RPGs. ## Facts - Interplay was founded in October 1983 in Irvine, California, by Brian Fargo, Rebecca Heineman, Jay Patel and Troy Worrell, with investor Chris Wells. - Its early RPGs — The Bard's Tale (1985), Wasteland (1988) and Dragon Wars (1989) — were all published by Electronic Arts. - In 1990 Interplay released J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I, one of the first licensed Middle-earth computer RPGs. - Interplay went public on NASDAQ in June 1998 at $5.50 a share; by August 1999 France's Titus Interactive owned 57% of it. - Brian Fargo resigned on January 24, 2002, and went on to found inXile Entertainment. - Interplay closed Black Isle Studios on December 8, 2003, and sold the Fallout IP outright to Bethesda Softworks in April 2007. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplay_Entertainment) - [Interplay (official site)](https://www.interplay.com/) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.