Ironclad Games is a Canadian

PC game A personal computer game, or abbreviated PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer (PC). The term ''PC game'' has been popularly used since the 1990s referring specifically to games on "Wintel" (Micr ...

developer. The company was founded in 2003 by former employees of Rockstar Vancouver. Ironclad is located in

Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard In ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Titles

Ironclad released their first game, ''

Sins of a Solar Empire ''Sins of a Solar Empire'' is a 2008 science fiction real-time strategy 4X video game developed by Ironclad Games and published by Stardock Entertainment for Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is a real-time strategy (RTS) game that incor ...

'' on February 4, 2008, a game that features a mix of components from

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, tur ...

and 4X strategy games. They released the ''Entrenchment'' expansion on February 11, 2009. The second expansion pack, ''Diplomacy'', was released on February 9, 2010: the ''Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity'' combination package, which included the ''Entrenchment'' and ''Diplomacy'' expansions, was also released on the same day. On February 21, 2012, they announced '' Sins of a Dark Age'', a

multiplayer online battle arena Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of Gamer, players compete on a structured battlefield, each controlling a single Player character, character with distinctive abilit ...

game set in a pre-war fantasy environment. A standalone expansion pack called ''Rebellion'', was also released for ''Sins of a Solar Empire'' on June 12, 2012. In 2022 Ironclad announced Sins of a Solar Empire 2, Beta Starting October 27, 2022

Iron engine

Ironclad's Iron Engine supports a number of advanced features including per-pixel

specular lighting A specular highlight is the bright spot of light that appears on shiny objects when illuminated (for example, see image on right). Specular highlights are important in 3D computer graphics, as they provide a strong visual cue for the shape of ...

, dynamic fractal generation, post-process

bloom Bloom or blooming may refer to: Science and technology Biology * Bloom, one or more flowers on a flowering plant * Algal bloom, a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in an aquatic system * Jellyfish bloom, a collective n ...

filtering,

environment mapping In computer graphics, reflection mapping or environment mapping is an efficient image-based lighting technique for approximating the appearance of a reflective surface by means of a precomputed texture. The texture is used to store the image of ...

, custom pixel and vertex shaders for all

meshes Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary for the purpose of indexing journal articles and books in the life sciences. It serves as a thesaurus of index terms that facilitates searching. Created and updated by the ...

and effects and an advanced particle system. v1.0 was used in ''

'' (2008). v2.0 was used in '' Sins of a Dark Age'' (2012). v3.0 is being used in Sins of a Solar Empire II (2022)

References

External links

Ironclad website
{{Authority control Video game companies of Canada Companies based in Burnaby Canadian companies established in 2003 Video game companies established in 2003 Video game development companies