The story
Founded by Jez San in 1982, in London.1
Argonaut Software was founded by teenager Jez San in September 1982, though his first game, Skyline Attack for the Commodore 64, was released before the company was officially formed. the company name is a play on his name and the mythological story of Jason and the Argonauts. Its head offices were in Colindale, London and a U.S. branch was located in Woodside, California in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 1986, the company released Starglider for the Atari ST and Amiga. It is widely considered to be the first 3D video game.
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. Argonaut's star programmer Dylan Cuthbert, alongside Nintendo, developed the Japan-only space combat simulation game X for the Game Boy in 1992. The game was notable for being one of the few 3D games on the console. An English version called Lunar Chase was developed but ultimately cancelled.
The combined efforts from Argonaut and Nintendo yielded a prototype of the game Star Fox, initially codenamed "nesGlider" and inspired by Starglider. The demo was then ported to the SNES. This ultimately became Star Fox, with Nintendo EAD handling design and Argonaut in charge of programming. Three programmers, including Cuthbert, were assigned to work on the game in Japan.
In order to improve performance from the demo, Nintendo commissioned Argonaut to design custom hardware to give the SNES true 3D capability. San hired chip designers and made the Super FX RISC processor. They originally codenamed it the Mathematical Argonaut Rotation I/O, or "MARIO", as is printed on the chip's surface. The chip was so powerful that Argonaut developers joked the Super NES was just a box to hold the chip.
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. Additionally, Argonaut built a full-color virtual reality headset for Nintendo, called Super Visor, before the Virtual Boy was developed. After receiving an investment from LSI Logic, Argonaut was commissioned to design a chip for a potential PlayStation 2 design.
Argonaut had a three-game deal with Nintendo, leading to the creation of Stunt Race FX. Cuthbert also worked on Star Fox 2, which would have introduced more open gameplay and multiple playable characters. The game was mostly completed by 1995, and an updated Super FX chip was designed, but Nintendo ultimately cancelled it due to the emergence of 32-bit consoles. The game was finally released in 2017 on the Super NES Classic Edition.
In 1996, John Edelson was hired as the company General Manager. He ran the group for two years, reorganizing the company, cutting costs, and streamlining operations. 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.
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In 1997, the company was moved to a new building in Edgware. It had about 120 employees at this time. 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. The game had previously been pitched to Nintendo as a 3D Yoshi game.
In 1998, 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, it continued the design of CPU and GPU products and maintained "BRender", Argonaut's proprietary software 3D engine.
In 1998, ATL was rebranded ARC after the name of its main product, the Argonaut RISC Core, and became an independent company under founder Rob Clucas and CEO Bob Terwilliger.
Argonaut Software Limited became Argonaut Games and was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2000. Intended to be a tie-in game for the 1997 movie, Alien Resurrection spent four years in development before it was released in 2000. The game had been a top-down shooter and third-person shooter before ultimately being released as a first-person shooter. In 2000, the company purchased the recently-founded Just Add Monsters. It also acquired the UK-based LTStudios in 2001 to work on PlayStation 2 games.
In 2001, Argonaut developed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for Electronic Arts. The game was well received and went on to sell eight million units by 2003. It purchased Particle Systems, a two-person development team in Sheffield, in January 2002.
The company's last game proved to be Malice for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It was originally expected to be released in 2002 by Vivendi, but spent six years in development. It was cancelled by Argonaut in 2003. At the same time, the cancellation and delay of several other projects put the company in financial distress. Malice was later picked up by ZeniMax Media in 2004 and quietly released that June.
In October 2004, Argonaut Games halted trading on the London Stock Exchange. It called in receivers David Rubin & Partners, placed its subsidiaries Argonaut Software into administration, and put them up for sale. The studio in Sheffield was closed. San resigned from the board of directors and purchased subsidiaries Just Add Monsters and Morpheme. With no buyer for Argonaut Software, all remaining employees were laid off. Just Add Monsters became Ninja Theory in November.
Studio leaders went on to form Rocksteady Studios and many former employees would join the developer. Argonaut was officially dissolved in 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, which had previously been teased by San the previous year.
On 25 September 2024, Argonaut announced it had made a strategic investment in Ancient Machine, the developer of the forthcoming PC narco-thriller VICE Undercover.
From Wikipedia’s article on Argonaut Games, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4