Argonaut Games
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Argonaut Games is a British video game developer founded in 1982. It was known for the Super NES video game Star Fox and its supporting Super FX chip, and for Croc: Legend of the Gobbos and the Starglider series. The company was liquidated in late 2004, and ceased to exist in early 2007. It was relaunched in 2024.
History
Template:Quote box Founded as Argonaut Software by teenager Jez San in 1982,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> the company name is a play on his name (J. San) and the mythological story of Jason and the Argonauts.
Its head offices were in Colindale, London,<ref name=Contact1996>"Company Summary" (Archive). Argonaut Games. 29 October 1996. Retrieved on 21 May 2016. "Argonaut Technologies Limited Capitol House, Capitol Way, Colindale, London, NW9 ODZ, United Kingdom" and "Argonaut USA Rich Seidner – Head of US Operations 210 Grandview Drive, Woodside, California, 94062, USA"</ref> and later in the Argonaut House in Edgware, London.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Its U.S. head office was in Woodside, California in the San Francisco Bay Area.<ref name=Contact1996 />
In 1990, Argonaut collaborated with Nintendo during the early years of the NES and SNES, a notable incident being when Argonaut submitted a proof-of-concept method of defeating the Game Boy's copyright protection mechanism to Nintendo.<ref name="McFerran">Template:Cite web</ref> The combined efforts from Argonaut and Nintendo yielded a prototype of the game Star Fox, initially codenamed "SnesGlider" and inspired by their earlier Atari ST and Amiga game Starglider, that they had running on the NES and then some weeks later on a prototype SNES. Jez San told Nintendo that his team could only improve performance or functionality of the demonstration if Nintendo allowed Argonaut to design custom hardware to extend the SNES to have true 3D capability. Nintendo agreed, so San hired chip designers and made the Super FX chip. They originally codenamed it the Mathematical Argonaut Rotation I/O, or "MARIO", as is printed on the chip's surface.<ref name="Interview with Jez San">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Of argonauts, vectors, and flying foxes">Template:Cite web</ref> So powerful was the Super FX chip used to create the graphics and gameplay, that they joked that the Super NES was just a box to hold the chip.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
After building the Super FX, Argonaut designed several different chips for other companies' video game machines, which were never released. These include machines codenamed GreenPiece and CD-I 2 for Philips, the platform codenamed VeggieMagic for Apple and Toshiba, and Hasbro's "virtual reality" game system codenamed MatriArc.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1995, Argonaut Software was split into Argonaut Technologies Limited (ATL) and Argonaut Software Limited (ASL). With space being a premium at the office on Colindale Avenue, ATL was relocated to an office in the top floor of a separate building. The building was called Capitol House on Capitol Way, just around the corner. There, they continued the design of CPU and GPU products and maintained "BRender", Argonaut's proprietary software 3D engine. They won a chip design project with LSI Logic for a potential PlayStation 2 design. LSI Logic became a minor investor in Argonaut.
In 1996, John Edelson was hired as the company General Manager. John Edelson ran the group for two years. Capital was raised in 1996–1998 from Tom Teichman and Apax Partners. According to Jez San, Argonaut remained an independent developer by choice, and had turned down several buyout offers.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
In 1997, the two arms of the company once again shared an office as the entire company was moved to a new building in Edgware. In September 1997, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was released by Fox Interactive for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. A PC version of the game was also later released in 1998.
In 1998, ATL was rebranded ARC after the name of their main product, the Argonaut RISC Core, and became an independent company spun off to the same shareholders. ARC was an embedded IP provider. Bob Terwilliger was engaged as the President.
Argonaut Software Limited became Argonaut Games and was floated in 1999.
In early October 2004, Argonaut Games called in receivers David Rubin & Partners, laid off 100 employees, and was put up for sale.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Many former employees would join newly established developer Rocksteady Studios. A lack of a consistent stream of publishing deals had led to cash-flow issues and a profit warning earlier that year. In 2005, the company entered liquidation and was dissolved in early 2007.
Reopening (2024–present)
On 28 August 2024, Jez San reopened Argonaut Games as a boutique publisher that would focus on re-releasing and remastering Argonaut's existing franchises alongside the publication of third-party independent titles. Its first release is a remaster of Croc: Legend of the Gobbos,<ref name="CrocRemaster">Template:Cite web</ref> which had previously been teased by San the previous year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref>
On 25 September 2024, Argonaut announced they had made a strategic investment in Ancient Machine, the developer of the forthcoming PC narco-thriller VICE Undercover.
BRender
BRender (abbreviation of "Blazing Renderer") is a development toolkit and a realtime 3D graphics engine for computer games, simulators, and graphic tools. It was developed and licensed by Argonaut Software.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The engine supports Intel's MMX instruction set and Windows, MS-DOS, and PlayStation platforms. Support for 3D hardware graphics accelerator cards was added.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Software made with BRender includes Carmageddon,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, FX Fighter,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> I-War,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and 3D Movie Maker. It was released as free and open-source software under the MIT License on 3 May 2022.<ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Titles
Games developed
Games published
| Year | Title | Platform(s) | Developer(s) | Note(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (remaster)<ref name="CrocRemaster" /> | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch | Titanium Studios and Big Boat Interactive | |
| Croc | Game Boy Color | TBC | Physical GBC re-release, digital release platforms currently unconfirmed |
Cancelled games
| Title | Development period | Platform |
|---|---|---|
| 8-Kings<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | Template:N/A | N-Gage |
| Crash vs. Spyro Racing<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 2004 | Xbox |
| Orchid<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 2003 | GameCube, PS2, and Xbox |
| Bionicle: City of Legends<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>"BIONICLE 2: City of Legends (Xbox Beta) ISO Release", BioMedia Project, 1 February 2014</ref> | 2004 | Xbox, PS2 |
| I-Ninja 2<ref>"I-Ninja 2: PS2/Xbox/GameCube – Cancelled", Unseen64, 12 March 2009</ref> | 2004 | PS2, Xbox, GameCube |
| Zero Hour<ref>"Zero Hour, PSP – Cancelled", Unseen64, 26 November 2009</ref> | 2004 | PS2, PSP |
| Cash on Delivery<ref>"Cash on Delivery, PSP – Cancelled", Unseen64, 27 July 2009</ref> | PS2 | |
| Croc 3 (rumored)Template:Cn | 2001 | Xbox |
| Kanaan<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | PC | |
| Unnamed Yoshi gameTemplate:Cn | 1995 | N64 |
| Transformers: Generation 2<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 1994 | SNES |