Cyberlore Studios
Cyberlore Studios, Inc. was incorporated in 1992 by the team that created the SSI Gold Box hit, The Dark Queen of Krynn. The first project under the Cyberlore banner was another SSI Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game, Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse. The game required the development of an entirely new engine for overhead-perspective, real-time play. By adding the necessary staff, the company completed "Genie" in fourteen months. Released to excellent reviews, the game has since been translated into four languages with world wide sales in excess of 90,000 copies.
Cyberlore and SSI teamed up again with Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall. Using an updated version of the "Genie" engine, this game completed for the PC in late September 1995, and was one of the first Windows 95 games on the market. The Macintosh version followed in November 1995.
Cyberlore's smash hit, WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, was finished at the end of April '96. Published by Blizzard Entertainment and welcomed by glowing reviews, it exceeded sales expectations and easily earned its place in the elite pantheon of WarCraft's quality products. Computer Gaming World crowned it the best expansion set of the year.
In August '97 Cyberlore developed Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty expansion for 3DO. It immediately joined the top ten best-selling games. Critics loved this turn-based strategy war game calling it "addictive," and with Computer Gaming World giving it a five star review. Not only did this set capture the look and feel of the original game, it added several new play-enhancing features.
Spring of '98 saw the release of Deadlock II:Shrine Wars, published by Accolade. A sequel to one of 1996's best-selling, turn-based strategy games, Deadlock 2 takes the original game to the next level with new units, buildings, technologies and an all-new interface. It is also be the first application of our phonetic editing system, used to create the game's animated alien characters.
In March, 2000, Cyberlore released Majesty®: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim’ to phenomenal reviews. Published by Hasbro Interactive, Majesty has garnered high praise from press and gamers alike. It earned Choosing Children's Software's Innovative Game of the Year Award and landed in CGW's list of the top five strategy games of the year. Cyberlore ported Majesty to the MacIntosh, and MacPlay released it in December, 2000 to five star reviews.
Cyberlore completed the feature packed expansion set, Majesty: The Northern Expansion, in 2000. It includes a bunch of new missions, monsters, buildings, spells and great multi-player enhancements.
In 2005, Cyberlore ceased development of general entertainment games after the collapse of their publisher, Hip Games, and the subsequent layoff of two thirds of their staff. The company refocused on the serious game corporate training market, under the new company name of Minerva.
