GRIN was a video game developer

Video game developer

A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...

 based in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. Founded by Bo and Ulf Andersson in 1997, GRIN has worked on numerous titles for the PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

, consoles

Video game console

A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...

 and arcade

Video arcade

An amusement arcade or video arcade is a venue where people play arcade games such as video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers , or coin-operated billiards or air hockey tables...

.

History

After Grin's first release with the award-winning Ballistics

Ballistics (video game)

Ballistics is a futuristic racing computer game developed by GRIN and published by Xicat Interactive in 2001. GRIN developed an arcade version of the game, released in 2002 featuring a unique reclined seating position cabinet by Triotech Amusement...

(PC, Arcade), the first game ever to use pixel-shaders, GRIN went forward with the critically acclaimed Bandits: Phoenix Rising

Bandits: Phoenix Rising

Bandits: Phoenix Rising is a futuristic, racing action game, set in a post apocalyptic wasteland.The player follows the pair Rewdalf and Fennec as they try to survive and make big bucks at the same time....

(PC) and several arcade machines, as well as military and civilian simulators. GRIN then went on to develop two games for Ubisoft, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is the third installment in the popular Ghost Recon tactical shooter video game series, published by Ubisoft in 2006. As in previous Ghost Recon games, players command their team of Ghosts while neutralizing hostile forces and completing various mission...

(PC) and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is the sequel to Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. It expands on the game play of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and is the fourth installment in the popular Ghost Recon tactical shooter video game series, published by Ubisoft.The game...

(PC). Bionic Commando Rearmed

Bionic Commando Rearmed

Bionic Commando Rearmed is an enhanced remake of the 1988 Nintendo Entertainment System version of Bionic Commando. It was developed by GRIN and published by Capcom for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live Arcade and was released on August 13, 2008...

(downloadable via Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, PC), Bionic Commando (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC), Wanted: Weapons of Fate (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC) and Terminator Salvation

Terminator Salvation (video game)

Terminator Salvation is a third-person shooter action video game, released on May 19, 2009 to coincide with the release of the film of the same name on the same week. It is developed by the Halcyon Company's gaming subsidiary, Halcyon Games, along with GRIN and published by Equity Games and Evolved...

were the latest titles that was released in 2008-2009. In 2007, GRIN expanded its franchise by adding an office on the Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 beach front, in the Torre Mapfre

Torre Mapfre

Torre Mapfre is a skyscraper in the Port Olímpic , the maritime neighborhood of the Old City of Barcelona in Spain. It is named after its owner, Mapfre, an insurance company....

 skyscraper, followed by another studio in the center of Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, along with the Grin Jakarta QA studio, located in the center of Jakarta

Jakarta

Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. A total of 250 persons were developing games for the next generation platforms; Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

GRIN began preproduction work on a Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy

is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...

spin-off game, Fortress, in the second half of 2008 when Square Enix outsourced it to the Swedish developer. The development team, based in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, began creating concept art, 3D models and a game engine

Game engine

A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...

, thinking of Fortress as a "game with an epic scale both in story and production values". In addition to original characters and locations, concept art for the game depicted Ashe and a Judge character from Final Fantasy XII, and chocobo

Chocobo

A is a fictional creature from the Final Fantasy video game series. The creature is a large and normally flightless galliforme/ratite bird capable of being ridden and otherwise used by player characters during gameplay...

s and other recurring creatures of the series

Character design of Final Fantasy

Although each installment of the Final Fantasy series is generally set in a different fictional world with separate storylines, there are some commonalities when it comes to character design. Certain design themes repeat themselves, as well as specific character names and classes...

. However, after six months of development, Square Enix reclaimed the project without paying GRIN, due to concerns over the quality of the work. GRIN co-founders Ulf and Bo Andersson claimed that "Square Enix

Square Enix

is a Japanese video game and publishing company best known for its console role-playing game franchises, which include the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Quest series, and the action-RPG Kingdom Hearts series...

 had already made up its mind that Fortress wasn't a project it wanted anymore". Square Enix's withdrawal left the Swedish developer in financial difficulty and with no other ongoing game project.

In 2009, GRIN closed its offices in Barcelona and Gothenburg, citing financial difficulties. On August 12, 2009 GRIN filed for bankruptcy. Later the same day, the official Grin site published the news that the company was closing down. GRIN noted that delayed payments from "too many publishers" caused "an unbearable cashflow situation" and mentioning in a farewell note their "unreleased masterpiece that [they] weren't allowed to finish".

Former members of GRIN have formed a new development studio, Might and Delight, which will focus on small, downloadable games. The former lead engineers of GRIN started the studio BitSquid together with the owners of Fatshark

Fatshark

Fatshark is an independent video game development studio based in Stockholm, Sweden.. The company's current name is a direct translation from Swedish meaning "to understand" or "to get it".-History:...

. Former quality assurance members formed a separate studio called Trinity QA Studio in June 2010.

Games

Release Date	Titles	Genre	Platform(s)
2001	Ballistics Ballistics (video game) Ballistics is a futuristic racing computer game developed by GRIN and published by Xicat Interactive in 2001. GRIN developed an arcade version of the game, released in 2002 featuring a unique reclined seating position cabinet by Triotech Amusement...	Racing Racing game A racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...	Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal... , Arcade Arcade game An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
2003	Bandits: Phoenix Rising Bandits: Phoenix Rising Bandits: Phoenix Rising is a futuristic, racing action game, set in a post apocalyptic wasteland.The player follows the pair Rewdalf and Fennec as they try to survive and make big bucks at the same time....	Racing	Microsoft Windows
2006	Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is the third installment in the popular Ghost Recon tactical shooter video game series, published by Ubisoft in 2006. As in previous Ghost Recon games, players command their team of Ghosts while neutralizing hostile forces and completing various mission...	Tactical shooter Tactical shooter A tactical shooter is a subgenre of shooter game that includes both first-person shooters and third-person shooters. These games typically simulate realistic combat, thus making tactics and caution more important than quick reflexes in other action games...	Microsoft Windows
2007	Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is the sequel to Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. It expands on the game play of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and is the fourth installment in the popular Ghost Recon tactical shooter video game series, published by Ubisoft.The game...	Tactical shooter	Microsoft Windows
2008	Bionic Commando Rearmed Bionic Commando Rearmed Bionic Commando Rearmed is an enhanced remake of the 1988 Nintendo Entertainment System version of Bionic Commando. It was developed by GRIN and published by Capcom for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live Arcade and was released on August 13, 2008...	Platformer Platform game A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...	Microsoft Windows, Xbox Live Arcade Xbox Live Arcade Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers... , PlayStation Network
2009 2009 in video gaming The year 2009 saw the release of many video games, including several sequels.-Events:-Scheduled releases:List of games scheduled for release in 2009 in North America....	Wanted: Weapons of Fate	Third-person shooter Third-person shooter Third-person shooter is a genre of 3D action games in which the player character is visible on-screen, and the gameplay consists primarily of shooting.-Definition:...	Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles... , PlayStation 3 PlayStation 3 The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
2009	Bionic Commando	Action Action game Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some... , Platformer Platform game A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...	Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
2009	Terminator Salvation Terminator Salvation (video game) Terminator Salvation is a third-person shooter action video game, released on May 19, 2009 to coincide with the release of the film of the same name on the same week. It is developed by the Halcyon Company's gaming subsidiary, Halcyon Games, along with GRIN and published by Equity Games and Evolved...	Third-person shooter, Action	Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Cancelled	Fortress (codename)	Action-adventure Action-adventure game An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...	Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Unfinished	Cult (codename)	Third-person shooter, Action	Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3