Ubi Soft, one of the world's leading videogame publishers, and Ravensburger Interactive Media GmbH today announced that they have signed an exclusive 3-year agreement for the distribution of the game Evil Islands in Europe (except Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Russia), French-speaking countries, Australia and New Zealand. The game, developed by Nival, will be released in Spring 2001 on PC. It will be distributed in German-speaking countries by Ravensburger and on the US market by the newly opened Ravensburger Interactive office in Boston, USA. Ubi Soft was also granted a first option for all future on and off line versions of the game.
"Evil Islands is a great addition to our game catalogue", said Alain Corre, Managing Director for Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and South America, Ubi Soft Entertainment. "I am convinced that its quality will seduce the most demanding gamers; the game is definitely a potential hit."
Ravensburger Interactive Managing Director Christoph Vilanek is very excited about the deal: " This publishing deal with a major such as Ubi Soft fits perfectly our global strategy for the new game label Fishtank. Our label will be broadly distributed and will become well-known as a new high-class label to passionate gamers all over Europe ". Frank Heukemes, Games Director, Ravensburger Interactive, comments the background of the deal: " Ubi Soft saw the title and was totally convinced at first glance. The fact that such a leading publisher will market the product underlines the quality of the title. This quality is a result of our very professional cooperation with our developer Nival, who created Evil Islands ".
Nival, the N°1 Russian developer, known for the series Rages of Mages, comes back with a very ambitious title : Evil Islands is the first full 3D RPG game. The game starts after an earth disaster of magical origin that divided the World into floating Islands. A young man with total amnesia has to survive in this unknown hostile environment….
Nival designed a concept that will fulfill the expectations of the most demanding RPG gamers, offering them an exceptional freedom of action. The gameplay is revolutionary as a character generator enables the members of the group mastered by the player to become genuine individuals. The player will have to discover 3 different Islands, which are populated with more than 120 different characters : cuddly animals, monsters, princes, murderers… Every character has been individually animated ! This great technology doesn't take any of the scenario away, as players will have to struggle for more than 100 hours of playing in a non linear game made of 80 different quests.