Beenox Inc. is a Canadian

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

established in 2000 in

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...

, Canada. The studio became a wholly owned subsidiary of

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

on May 25, 2005.

History

Between 2003 and 2006, the developer was essentially a

porting In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

house. They completed approximately 30 projects for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

and

Macintosh operating systems Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...

, based on popular franchises such as

X-Men The X-Men are a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, first appearing in Uncanny X-Men, ''The X-Men'' #1 by artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby and writer/editor Stan Lee in 1963. Although initially cancelled in ...

Spider-Man Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in the Si ...

and

Shrek ''Shrek'' is a 2001 American computer-animated comedy film loosely based on the 1990 book of the same name by William Steig. It is the first installment in the ''Shrek'' franchise. The film was directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jen ...

. In 2006, they returned to original game development with the console versions of ''

Bee Movie Game ''Bee Movie Game'' is a video game based on the DreamWorks-animated movie ''Bee Movie''. The game was released on October 30, 2007. Beenox developed the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, and Microsoft Windows versions of the game, Smart Bomb Interactiv ...

'', inspired by the

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

from

DreamWorks Animation DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA, also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios and simply known as DreamWorks) is an American animation studio that produces animated films and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a divisio ...

. As part of Activision's E3 2007 media blitz, it was announced that Beenox was the developer behind the Windows version of Activision's

game '' Spider-Man: Friend or Foe'', which was released in October 2007. They released the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Windows versions of '' Monsters vs. Aliens'' and the console versions of ''

Guitar Hero Smash Hits ''Guitar Hero Smash Hits'' (titled ''Guitar Hero Greatest Hits'' in Europe and Australia) is a music rhythm game and the fourth expansion game to the ''Guitar Hero'' series. The game features 48 songs originally featured in five previous game ...

''. Beenox later developed the

games '' Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions'', '' Spider-Man: Edge of Time'', ''

The Amazing Spider-Man ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' is an ongoing American comic book series featuring the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man as its main protagonist. Being in the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it began publication in 1963 as a bimonthly per ...

'' and ''

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ''The Amazing Spider-Man 2'' (internationally titled ''The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro'') is a 2014 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. The film was directed by Marc Webb and produced by Avi ...

''. After founder Dominique Brown's departure in December 2012, the studio's focus shifted from leading original game development to doing a number of support tasks on

's superbrands ''

Skylanders ''Skylanders'' is a toys-to-life action-adventure video game series published by Activision. ''Skylanders'' games are played by placing character figures called the Skylanders on the "Portal of Power", a device that reads the figures' tags throu ...

'' and ''

Call of Duty ''Call of Duty'' is a first-person shooter video game franchise published by Activision. Starting out in 2003, it first focused on games set in World War II. Over time, the series has seen games set in the midst of the Cold War, futuristic ...

''. In 2015, Beenox worked in conjunction with Mercenary Technology on bringing '' Call of Duty: Black Ops III'' to

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

. In March 2022, Beenox announced that it would open a second office in

Montréal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

, increasing its staff count by 20%. Polloni will lead the new studio.

Games developed

Ports

References

External links

* * * * {{Activision Activision Companies based in Quebec City Canadian companies established in 2000 Video game companies established in 2000 Video game companies of Canada Video game development companies 2000 establishments in Quebec 2005 mergers and acquisitions Canadian subsidiaries of foreign companies