Avalanche Studios

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Avalanche Studios is the company that made the Just Cause game series.

Newest logo of Avalanche Studios.

Logo of Avalanche Studios Group.

Description[]

Not to be confused with Avalanche Software, Avalanche Studios is a video games developer based in Stockholm. They also own studios in New York, Malmo and Liverpool.

History[]

It was founded in March 2003 by Christofer Sundberg, Linus Blomberg and Viktor Blomberg. Avalanche Studios focuses on developing original intellectual properties for games and other media and base their projects on the Avalanche Engine (link to wikipedia). The Avalanche Engine (link to this wiki) is a unique game technology, powering landscapes in explicit detail.

It was reported on October 24th, 2008 that 77 employees were laid off due to Avalanche losing two publishing contracts.

On March 24th Avalanche announced that they have formed a new development studio called Expansive Worlds which is the casual and online games division with a strong focus on community-driven subscription-based titles.

Click here for a 10 minute video from 2014, where the company leadership talks about the company history, focusing mostly on the New York division that created Just Cause 3. See the video section below about life at their Stockholm studio.

It was announced on May 30th, 2018 that the company was purchased by Nordisk Film. They had been a minority share holder for a year and now bought the rest of them. The company is now estimated to cost about 117 million euros. Mikkel Weider, Managing Director at Nordisk Film Games, is said to be impressed with the "results" of Avalanche Studios and with how "Avalanche Studios has built a world-class team and created a unique company culture that perfectly matches our own values."

Reportedly: "Under Nordisk Film’s ownership, Avalanche Studios’ strategy will remain unaltered. It will continue as a creatively independent game studio, developing its own IP’s, as well as catering to third-party publishers and license holders. Following the deal, co-founders Christofer Sundberg and Linus Blomberg will remain at Avalanche Studios, focusing on the creative and technical aspects of its games development. The management team, with CEO Pim Holfve at the helm, will also continue unchanged."

Also reportedly: "Agreements with outside publishers that are already existing will continue as well (such as Avalanche's partnership with Bethesda to develop Rage 2), with the door left open for both new publisher partnerships large and small. Self-published games aren't going anywhere, either, especially with the addition of the Malmö studio to focus on "small and flexible projects." Holfve said that the company will accelerate its self-publishing, with games such as Avalanche's theHunter fitting in well with Nordic's ideas for games as services. "We have been running theHunter Classic as a service for almost a decade, and that's also how we think about our upcoming self-published games as well," Holfve said. "theHunter: Call of the Wild has been supported with new DLC (paid and free), game updates, community events and more since launch. That's a great blueprint for how we think about our self-published games as active, dynamic services for our fans.""

As of March 2020 the company seems to have been restructured a bit, so "Avalanche Studios Group" now owns "Avalache Studios", "Expansive Worlds AB" and "Systemic Reaction". The "This is Avalanche Studios Group" video (see below) speaks of Avalanche Studios Group and Avalache Studios rather seamlessly. Simply put, Avalanche Studios has expanded a little, so there's now an "Avalanche Studios Group" which is sort of like a parent company of Avalanche Studios and 2 others.

As explained by Zeke Virant (see the "This is Avalanche Studios Group" video below), Avalanche Studios consists of 3 divisions:

AAA division, which works with publishers to advance the technology to do next generation experiences.
A self-publishing division, which is working to create amazing new ideas and which works to bring AAA ideas into a AA world.
"Expansive Worlds", which "is basically the leader of out-doors videogames right now".

It was announced on june 3 of 2024 that Avalanche is closing its studios at New York and Montreal and laying off 50 employees. They still have studios at Stockholm, Malmo and Liverpool.

Fact list[]

Founded: March 2003.
Price: 117 000 000 € (as of 2018.05.30).
HQ: Stockholm, Sweden.
Employes:
- About 250 (as of April 2016).
- Over 320 (as of May 2018).
- Roughly 350 (as of April 2020).
- 300ish (as of June 2024).
Subsidiaries of Avalanche Studios Group: Expansive Worlds AB, Avalache Studios and Systemic Reaction.

Key people (incomplete list)[]

A few of the following people might no longer work there, but they are still listed because they were relevant to the making of some Just Cause games. This being the Just Cause wiki, we don't really need to list all the 350 latest people.

Christofer Sundberg (founder).
Linus Blomberg (founder).
Viktor Blomberg (founder).
Pim Holfve (CEO of Avalache Studios, then also(?) of Avalanche Studios Group).
Åsa Wilson (Chief People Officer at Avalanche Studios Group).
Magnus Nedfors (principal designer for Just Cause and game director for Just Cause 2).
Peter Johansson (lead designer for JC2).
Roland Lesterlin (game director for Just Cause 3).
Francesco Antolini (game director for Just Cause 4).
Hamish Young (lead mechanics designer for JC4).
Benjamin Jaekle (narrative designer for JC4).
Robert Meyer (senior game designer for JC4).
Omar Shakir (lead writer for JC4).
Victoria Setian (senior producer, who is overseeing all of the Downloadable content for Just Cause 4).
Alexis (a "dev" who set some high scores in the JC4 in-game "feats").
Zeke Virant (game designer at Expansive Worlds).

Games[]

Note: This list is incomplete.

Game	Release year	Platforms
Game	Release year	Xbox	Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS2	PS3	PS4	Windows XP	Windows Vista, or later
Just Cause	2006	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
The Hunter (link to wikipedia)	2009	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Just Cause 2	2010	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Renegade Ops (link to wikipedia)	2011	No	Yes	?	No	Yes	?	?	Yes
AionGuard (link to wikipedia)	Canceled in 2010, but might still be made eventually	No	Initially yes	No	No	Initially yes	No	No	No
Mad Max (link to wikipedia)	2014	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Just Cause 3	2015	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Just Cause 4	2018	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes

See also: Just Cause game series.

Avalanche Studios

Contents

Description[]

History[]

Fact list[]

Key people (incomplete list)[]

Games[]

See also[]

Gallery[]

Videos[]

Fan Feed