Troika Games

Troika Games

Company type	Private
Industry	Video games
Founded	April 1, 1998 (1998-04-01)
Founder	Jason Anderson, Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky
Defunct	February 24, 2005 (2005-02-24)
Headquarters	United States
Products	Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, The Temple of Elemental Evil, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines

Troika Games was a United States-based video game developer founded by Jason Anderson, Tim Cain, and Leonard Boyarsky. Active from 1998 until 2005, the studio focused on creating role-playing video games and gained recognition primarily for Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

History

In 1997, Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson collaborated on the sequel to Fallout while at Interplay. Following the completion of the initial design phase for Fallout 2, differences regarding team organization prompted them to form Troika Games on April 1, 1998. The name Troika, derived from the Russian term "Тройка," meaning "group of three," symbolized their trio's pivotal contributions to the original Fallout. Although they initially planned to work exclusively with Sierra Entertainment, they eventually partnered with various publishers for each release. Due to an inability to obtain further financial support, Troika downsized its workforce in late 2004 and ultimately shut down operations on February 24, 2005.

Games

Troika began development in 1998 on the steampunk-inspired RPG Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, which was published by Sierra Entertainment in August 2001. While its combat system received criticism for lack of refinement, the game was generally well-received, achieving an 81% score on Metacritic and selling approximately 234,000 copies—making it the studio’s top-selling product. A re-release occurred via Steam in 2016, where it had amassed over 200,000 owners by March 2017.

Following Arcanum, Troika divided into two development teams. One group produced The Temple of Elemental Evil for Atari, which launched in September 2003. Although commended for its accurate adaptation of the D&D 3.5 ruleset, the title was hampered by technical glitches and a lackluster narrative, resulting in mixed feedback and a Metacritic score of 71%. Sales reached around 128,000 units.

Meanwhile, the other team developed Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines under contract with Activision, utilizing an early iteration of the Source engine. Completed by October 2004, its release was postponed until November to align with the launch of Half-Life 2 due to contractual terms. The game earned praise for its visual design, soundscape, and storytelling, though reviewers noted persistent bugs; it received an 80% rating on Metacritic and initially sold roughly 72,000 copies. After becoming available digitally through Direct2Drive and Steam in 2016, sales increased substantially—by March 2017, approximately 550,000 users owned it on Steam.

In 2004, Troika attempted to find a publisher for an unnamed post-apocalyptic RPG but was unsuccessful, sparking speculation about the company’s impending closure by early 2005. Screenshots appeared on Fallout fan websites, and a technology demonstration was released shortly before the studio's shutdown. Tim Cain later revealed this project was meant to serve as a sequel to Fallout, but the intellectual property rights were acquired by Bethesda after they submitted a higher bid than Troika.

List of games

Year	Title	Publisher	Platform
2001	Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura	Sierra On-Line	Microsoft Windows
2003	The Temple of Elemental Evil	Atari
2004	Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines	Activision

External links

• Archived official site via Internet Archive
• Troika Games company profile on MobyGames
• The Escapist – An analysis of Troika's ascent and decline