page_title: Airship Syndicate
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Airship Syndicate / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Comic book creator Joe Madureira at the Big Apple Convention in Manhattan, October 2, 2010. This photo was created by Luigi Novi. It is not in the public domain, and use of this file outside of the licensing terms is a copyright violation. If you would like to use this image outside of the Wikimedia projects, you may do so, only if I am properly credited, either by linking the photograph to this page, or with an easily visible credit placed near the photo in each instance in which it is used. Please credit authorship as follows: &#160;© Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. Please maintain the original file name in all uses. You can see a gallery of some of my other photos here. If you have any questions, you can contact me by sending me an email or leaving a note at the bottom of my Wikipedia talk page.
context_page_description: Airship Syndicate is a video game development company based in Austin, Texas. Founded by several ex-Vigil Games staff including Joe Madureira and Ryan Stefanelli, in 2014, Airship Syndicate is most known for developing Battle Chasers: Nightwar, Darksiders Genesis and Ruined King: A League of Legends Story.
context_section_description: Vigil Games, the creator of the Darksiders series, was shut down after publisher THQ declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The co-founders of Vigil Games, Joe Madureira returned to work for Marvel Comics, while Ryan Stefanelli joined Crytek USA and worked on Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age. After Hunt's development was rebooted by Crytek and Madureira finished his work on the comics, the two, alongside ex-Vigil Games animator Steve Madureira, decided to start an independent studio with a small team, as they felt that Vigil grew to become too big. When they were choosing the studio's name, they initially considered using the name "Chaotic Evil", but they dropped the name after realizing that it was once used by a porn site. According to Madureira, they ultimately decided to use the title "Airship Syndicate" instead, since the title reflected a "vibe of exploration and otherworldly technologies".
  After the company's establishment, it quickly began developing a dungeon crawling game, which was described by the team as a "love letter" to JRPG. Initially set to be a new intellectual property (IP), the game was later set in the Battle Chasers universe, which was created by Madureira. Madureira had reservations, since he considered Battle Chasers to be an old comic book series and he was unsure if "fans would care". Nonetheless, when Battle Chasers: Nightwar launched on Kickstarter, it earned more than $850,000, surpassing its initial goal of $500,000. The team expanded since the scope of the project increased significant during the course of development. The game was released on October 2017 by THQ Nordic and it was both a critical and commercial success.
  After the successful release of Battle Chasers: Nightwar, the studio began pitching to THQ Nordic, the owner of the Darksiders IP, about a new installment in the series. Gunfire Games was working on Darksiders III, but due to Airship Syndicate's small size, it wanted to create a game with a smaller scope. The new instalment, titled Darksiders Genesis, is played from an isometric perspective, unlike other games in the series. It has a two-year development cycle. The game was released to generally positive reviews in December 2019.
  At The Game Awards 2019, the studio announced Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, a single-player turn-based strategy game set the League of Legends universe. Riot Forge will publish the game.
caption: Joe Madureira co-founded the studio
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