''Capture the Flag'' Pioneer Closes Doors

Initial reports said that Threewave Software had closed its doors.

Over the weekend, there were reports that the pioneer of Capture the Flag--Threewave Software--had closed its doors. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Threewave began as a simple Quake mod group helmed by Michael Goodhead, and helped David "Zoid" Kirsch fine-tune and expand his Capture the Flag multiplayer gameplay mod (via the popular Threewave CTF) while he moved on to work for id Software. Now Capture the Flag is an industry standard multiplayer mod for most FPS-based games.

Over the next ten years, Threewave worked with various publishers including Activision, EA, Valve Software, and LucasArts.  Recent projects included the multiplayer portion of Ghostbusters and Army of Two. But now it looks as if the contract well has run dray, as according this Twitter post, the studio closed due to no new contracts. Gamesatura contacted Threewave to get the full scoop, and discovered there's some truth to the matter.

Apparently Threewave is entering a "reorganization phase," and has let some of the company's staff go. "We are trying [to] move forward in a manner that reflects today's reality," said Threewave CEO Dan Irish in an email to Gamesatua. The studio originally began attempts to beef up its staff to work on Xbox Live Arcade games and larger, in-house properties. However, according to Gamesatura, these projects never "came to fruition."

So what's to become of the CTF pioneer? That remains to be seen, and we're waiting on more news of the studio's health. Until then, fans of Threewave CTF should re-install id Software's Quake and throw in the CTF mod, and frag away as a tribute. You might need to find the CTF bots mod though.... we're not too sure if any Quake servers are still up and running somewhere.