Troika Games

Troika Games was founded in 1998 by Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson, three of the principal creators of the original Fallout, who left Interplay to start their own studio. Named for its three founders, Troika set out to make deep, ambitious, choice-rich role-playing games, and in its short life it produced a trilogy of titles now cherished as cult classics, each brilliant in design and infamously rough at release.

Its debut, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (2001), was an inventive RPG set in a world where industrial technology and traditional magic collided, with the two forces literally interfering with each other in gameplay. It offered enormous freedom and reactivity, wrapped in a steampunk-fantasy setting unlike anything else. Next came The Temple of Elemental Evil (2003), a faithful adaptation of a classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure that implemented the tabletop rules with unusual fidelity, prized by fans despite technical problems.

Troika's final and most beloved game was Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (2004), an atmospheric first-person RPG set in the World of Darkness, where players navigated the shadowy politics of vampire clans in a moody, sardonic Los Angeles. Its writing, characters, and immersive setting were exceptional, but it shipped unfinished and heavily bugged, colliding at launch with the juggernaut Half-Life 2, since both used the same engine. Devoted fans spent years releasing community patches, and Bloodlines grew into one of the most celebrated cult RPGs ever made.

Commercially, none of Troika's games sold enough to sustain the studio, which struggled to secure funding for new projects. In 2005, unable to land a publishing deal for prospective games, Troika Games closed. Its founders dispersed across the industry, with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky later reuniting at Obsidian to create The Outer Worlds. Troika lasted only three games and seven years, but each of those games left a devoted following that keeps its memory vividly alive.