DefileCraft

## Release timeline

*2012* - Hide'n'seek
 *2012* - Spleef
 *2013* - Forges
 *2013* - Raiders 1
 *2014* - Creative
 *2015* - Arena
 *2015* - Survival Enhanced
 *2016* - Bedwars
 *2016* - Raiders 2
 *2017* - Forges 2
 *2018* - Planeteers
 *2019* - Raiders 3
 *2020* - Forges: Legacy Remake
 *2021*
 *2022* - ACE
 *2023* - Forges Red

**DefileCraft** is an American game developer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

## History

The company was founded in the spring of 2012 by amateur Minecraft minigame Seattle-based developers Peter Collen and Kern Baker. The server launched in march of 2012 with the games Spleef and Hide'n'Seek.

At the end of 2012, the duo expanded their team to include 10 people. In 2013, with 15 people on the team, they released their first original game, Raiders. The company saw widespread success with the game, gaining 1,000 daily players. 5 months later, now with 22 members, DefileCraft released Forges, a game that took inspiration from Prison servers and combined them with aspects of vanilla Minecraft.

Following the succesful year, the team took time off to polish and update their existing games. In 2014, they launched Creative, a take on other servers' Plots gamemodes.

In 2014, the company grew to 30 members.

By the start of 2015, the server had an active daily player count of 2,700. In early 2015, Arena was launched. Later in the year, Peter and Kern's old 2011 project Survival Enhanced was ported to DefileCraft's server, updating it to the current version.

DefileCraft developed their version of Bedwars in 2016 at the peak of the gamemode's popularity. The game, opposite to many other modes, included custom maps and a seasonal ladder in the game, including seasonal maps made by the community.

The successor to the 2013 game *Raiders* was released in June of 2016. Raiders 2 expanded on the first game by adding ambitious new mechanics and game modes. Like Bedwars, the game came with a seasonal ladder and a new class, the Crusader.

The company secured a purchase of another Minecraft minigame developer, Inoum. This gave DefileCraft an additional 20 employees, reaching 46 in total. This was also the time that teams were made to create and update DefileCraft's various titles. From its creation, the Forges Team began development of Forges 2 starting 2017.

The first of DefileCraft's game shutdowns, Forges was closed 1 month prior to Forges 2's launch. The decision was contentious for the community, given that the game was a fan favorite for many.

Forges 2 launched in October 2017 with mixed reactions. The game developed on Forges, but also lacked many features previously present.

After the pushback of Forges 2, a team was tasked with creating a new game to draw attention to. Planeteers launched in 2018. The game featured space exploration and colonization, including mining for minerals, similar to Forges 2. While at first underdeveloped and lacking content at launch, the game received major overhauls in 2019 much to the joy of fans.

That same year, DefileCraft shut down Spleef, with a non-vicious reaction by players.

By 2019, DefileCraft had attained 58 employees. The first lobby update was pushed out and the first Arcade Collection launched. Behind the scenes, the Raiders Team 2 were making a new game in the series. Raiders 3 switched up the formula of the previous installments by being an MMORPG. The game released in December 2019.

By the first month of release, the game saw substantial growth in players. By its first expansion, Reroute, Raiders 3 had a total of 2,000 players a month.

2020, being the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, saw DefileCraft's teams go almost fully digital. Though the company had many employees not in Seattle who worked from home, the sudden shutdown caused delays in game development.

Nonetheless, Raiders 3 saw its second expansion's launch, The Black Gate, in September. A new addition to the legacy remake series, Forges: Legacy Remake, was released in November of 2020.

Onyx Games was also founded in 2020 by DefileCraft co-founder Peter Collen. It serves as the publisher of DefileCraft and their original projects, the first of which is an unnamed Raiders project announced in 2021.

2021 is the only year thus far where no games were released. DefileCraft's employee count grew to 82 and they bought an office space for their parent company Onyx in Portland, Oregon.

2021 was the year that ACE was put in development. The Zeppelins team used scraps left from the old project to put together ACE, which released in 2022.

After leading the company as president since 2012, Peter Collen announced his resignation from the office. He would still be with DefileCraft and would work on new games with the teams. Kern Baker became president following the announcement in 2021

2022 saw the release of ACE and the server and company's 10 year anniversary.

A new mainline installment to the Forges franchise was announced in March of 2023. Forges Red will be released in the Winter of 2023.

## Cancelled/rumored projects

Since 2019, DefileCraft have been working under a 2-year-plan, where the developers will think about where their product will stand 2 years from its release, being refreshed each time there is an update.

### Games released and removed

*Spleef* - released in 2013, the game was removed in 2018 to make way for 'future projects.'

*Hide'n'seek* - released in 2013, Hide'n'seek was confirmed on Twitter and Discord to be removed by mid 2023 as DefileCraft focuses on creating unique projects. A classic gamemode may be made available.

### Confirmed to be cancelled

*Pirate War* - one of the earliest cancelled games, Kern Baker said it was a 'game where players would build up their ships and fight each other.' (2012)

*Bleak* - beat-em-up style game. (2013)

*Trouble in Creeper Village* - TTT-style game. (2014)

*Forges 2 (Original iteration)* - Forges 2 began development in 2015 but saw little development during the year. Cancelled until 2016. (2015)

*Arena Plus* - expanded gamemodes for *Arena*. (2017)

*Hunt* - neolithic survival game. (2019)

*Zeppelins* - started development in 2020, game cancelled on November 18th, team sent to work on ACE. (2020)

*Dungeon Crawler Project* - turned into Plate in 2022. (2021)

*Planeteers 2* - team moved on to Unnamed Raiders project (2023)

### Unconfirmed but likely cancelled

*Rig Test* - racing game, talked about on Twitter by Kern Baker.

### Rumored upcoming games

*Vantablack* - mentioned by Peter Collen on Twitter.