1C Makes Major North American Push with Atari

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Major Russian independent publisher and developer 1C Company announced today its intention to make its first large-scale push into the North American market via a new distribution deal with publisher Atari. The company, which already also operates offices out of China and the UK, is hoping to establish itself as a known gaming force throughout Western territories. Previously, 1C has entered into individual third party publishing relationships to distribute certain titles in North America, with Ubisoft publishing 1C-owned Maddox Games' acclaimed IL-2 Sturmovik flight sims and Cinemaware publishing Elemental Games' well-received space strategy game Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators. Going forward, Atari will have first right of refusal on all 1C games in North America.

Among the slate of 1C games set to be released by Atari is Digital Spray's alternate history shooter You Are Empty, set in a 1950s Soviet Union where state-sanctioned experiments on humans have left citizens mutated or dead. First announced in 2004 and demonstrated at several E3 events, You Are Empty is expected to be released for PC later this year.

Also on the roster is Chris Faylor's most anticipated game of the year, SoftLab-NSK's trucker life sim Rig'n'Roll. Rig'n'Roll is the story of a California trucker in the year 2024, featuring truck racing, cargo delivery, and trucking company management including hiring and firing employees and demolishing opposing firms in the cutthroat world of trucking. Numerous California highways and cities will be faithfully reproduced. 1C plans to release Rig'n'Roll for PC later in 2007.

The full list of PC games included in today's announcement is as follows (screenshots are linked from each game's title):
- Action Forms' arctic FPS Cryostasis (Q4 2007)
- SkyFallen Entertainment's fantasy RPG Dawn of Magic (2007)
- Haggard Games' WWII espionage action game Death to Spies (2007)
- Ino-Co's fantasy turn-based strategy game Fantasy Wars (2007)
- Katauri Interactive's adventure/strategy RPG King's Bounty: The Legend (2007)
- SoftLab's near-future trucker sim Rig'n'Roll (2007)
- CrioLand's space sim/RPG The Tomorrow War (2007) (based on the novels of Alexander Zorich)
- 1C Company's WWII RTS Theatre of War (April 19, 2007)
- Unicorn Games' medieval RTS XIII Century: Death or Glory (2007)
- Digital Spray's alternate history FPS You Are Empty (2007)

From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 23, 2007 3:02 PM

    I smell something from those two screens... Could it be a turdlike vapor wafting my way? I'm sorry, but that first game is so generic, and the second game seems to be running the Time Crisis engine.

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