Deck13 Interactive GmbH (formerly TriggerLab GmbH) is a German

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 ...

and publisher based in Frankfurt. The company was founded in July 2001 by the team behind Artex Software, a studio that primarily developed video games for RISC OS, such as '' Ankh: The Tales of Mystery''. Originally bearing the name TriggerLab, the company was renamed to Deck13 after the release of its first game, ''Stealth Combat'', in 2002. Deck13 is best known for developing the

action role-playing game An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG) is a subgenre of video games that combines core elements from both the action game and role-playing genre. Definition The games emphasize real-time combat where the player h ...

s ''

Lords of the Fallen ''Lords of the Fallen'' is an action role-playing video game developed by Deck13 and CI Games. It was released in October 2014 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows. A mobile version of the game, which features one-to-one swipe ...

'' and ''

The Surge ''The Surge'' is a 2017 action role-playing video game developed by Deck13 Interactive and published by Focus Home Interactive for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It is considered a spiritual successor to Deck13 Interactive's ea ...

''. Deck13 also operates a Hamburg-based subsidiary studio,

Deck13 Hamburg Deck13 Interactive GmbH (formerly TriggerLab GmbH) is a German video game developer and publisher based in Frankfurt. The company was founded in July 2001 by the team behind Artex Software, a studio that primarily developed video games for RISC ...

History

Deck13 is the successor to Artex Software, a development team that created the game ''Ankh'' for RISC OS. The company was founded as TriggerLab in 2001 by Jan Klose and Florian Stadlbauer. TriggerLab developed ''Stealth Combat'', which was first released in Germany on 25 February 2002; shortly thereafter, on 2 April 2002, the company was renamed as Deck13 Interactive. The name "Deck13" was derived from "DM-Deck16", a game map from '' Unreal Tournament'' (1999). In 2005, the humorous

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

'' Ankh'' was released, which was a remake of the 1997 game '' Ankh: The Tales of Mystery'' by Artex Software. As the product sold very well and won several awards (especially in Germany), the sequel '' Ankh: Heart of Osiris'' was produced and released almost exactly one year later, reusing elements of the previous title. In August 2007, the adventure game '' Jack Keane'' was released which was similar to the ''Ankh'' series in terms of graphics and gameplay but which was set in England and

colonial India Colonial India was the part of the Indian subcontinent that was occupied by European colonial powers during the Age of Discovery. European power was exerted both by conquest and trade, especially in spices. The search for the wealth and prosper ...

. The third part of the ''Ankh'' series, ''The Battle of the Gods'', was released in Germany on 19 November 2007. One of their latest games, the

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

called '' Venetica'' was released in September 2009 and was the first RPG to be published by the company. Afterwards, Deck13 Interactive was working on '' Blood Knights'', a comic hack-and-slash 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 serv ...

, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, which was released in 2013. In 2015, Deck13 released ''

'' in co-operation CI Games. While a sequel was announced by the publisher, Deck13 was not named as the developer. Instead, the studio was announced to be working with Focus Home Interactive on the then-upcoming ''

''. In September 2016, managing director Florian Stadlbauer announced that he had left the company and had since replaced by Mathias Reichert. In June 2020, Focus Home Interactive acquired the company for €7.1 million. In February 2021, Deck13 opened a development studio in Montreal.

Games developed

Cancelled

* ''The Mystery of the Seven Symbols'' * ''Jade Rousseau: Die Geheimen Evangelien – Episode 2: Die Bruderschaft'' * ''Jade Rousseau: Die Geheimen Evangelien – Episode 3: Das geheime Dossier'' * ''Jade Rousseau: Die Geheimen Evangelien – Episode 4: Der Weg in die Finsternis'' * ''Jade Rousseau: Die Geheimen Evangelien – Episode 5: Die Geister der Vergangenheit'' * ''Jade Rousseau: Die Geheimen Evangelien – Episode 6: Der Zorn Gottes''

Games published

References

External links