Snowblind Studios game engine

Snowblind Studios

Former type	Subsidiary of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Industry	Interactive entertainment Computer and video games
Fate	Merged into Monolith Productions
Successor	Monolith Productions
Founded	1997
Defunct	2012
Headquarters	Kirkland, Washington, USA
Products	Video games
Owner	Time Warner
Number of employees	80+
Parent	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Website	http://www.snowblind.com/

Snowblind Studios was a video game developer located in Kirkland, Washington. They were founded in 1997, specializing in role-playing video games. In 2009, Snowblind Studios was acquired by Time Warner, through its Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment division. In 2010, the studio (along with studio Surreal Software) was physically relocated to Monolith. After the release of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, the team was merged in with Monolith Productions to develop Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which was released in September 30, 2014.

The Snowblind engine, also referred to as the Dark Alliance game engine, is a game engine created by Snowblind Studios for perspective correct overhead third person view role-playing games. It was first used by Snowblind Studios to create Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. The previous Baldur's Gate games used the Infinity Engine which was created by BioWare for isometric role-playing games.

The first game to use the engine was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, a joint collaboration between Interplay Entertainment and Snowblind Studios. Interplay then used the engine for all their ports of the game except the Game Boy version, which used its own game engine. These ports of the game greatly expanded on how much content the game was able to use and the amount of saving slots present in the game.

The engine was then used by Snowblind Studios in its EverQuest games starting with Champions of Norrath. Snowblind improved the engine in their own ways, such as adding new features such as character creation and online multiplayer. Interplay, however, continued to use the engine, due to the fact they partly owned the engine, for their console games. Interplay used the engine for their sequel to Dark Alliance, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II, which was developed by Black Isle Studios. This sequel once again improved on the engine's capabilities and added more features, improved graphics and better audio; it added features from the Infinity Engine Baldur's Gate games such as Companions. Interplay then released Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and The Bard's Tale; both games improved on the engine in their own way. Brotherhood of Steel added a reputation system to the game and The Bard's Tale improved on other features of the engine, such as audio. The Bard's Tale was the Dark Alliance Engine's first PC release. Interplay was developing a sequel to Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2. This game would have added the features of sniping, stealth and a more advanced reputation system. It was, however, canceled.