IllFonic founder Charles Brungardt had been working with
R&B artist
Raphael Saadiq since exiting college, producing and engineering records. While working together, Saadiq confronted Brungardt with the idea of appearing in video games, based on which the game
Ghetto Golf was conceptualized. The studio moved around within Denver, from the garage to an apartment, then to offices above bars on Denver's broadway, before moving to proper offices by
Speer Boulevard in the
Golden Triangle in June 2013. In March 2010, IllFonic was announced to be developing
Nexuiz, a remake of
the game of the same name released by Alientrap in 2005. The remake was released in February 2012 for
Xbox 360 and in May 2012 for
Microsoft Windows, published through
THQ Partners, part of publisher
THQ. However, as THQ went through
bankruptcy, the servers for
Nexuiz Xbox 360 version were shut down. The game's developer, Cloud Imperium Games, planned to integrate these assets into the main game, however, after one year of work, discrepancies in the scales of the two studios' assets were found, making them incompatible. That month, IllFonic laid off six developers, including three of those working on
Star Citizen. The game's development was "indefinitely suspended" in March 2016. In late 2014, IllFonic and publisher
Gun Media announced
Slasher Vol. 1: Summer Camp, an asymmetrical
hide-and-seek-style
action game. In early 2015, the game came to the attention of
Sean S. Cunningham, the producer of the
Friday the 13th series of films, who approached Gun Media to turn
Summer Camp into a licensed game; the game was subsequently renamed to
Friday the 13th: The Game. By this time, IllFonic had 50 employees. The game was released in May 2017 for Microsoft Windows,
PlayStation 4, and
Xbox One. However, legal battle surrounding the
Friday the 13th franchise rights was in progress, causing IllFonic to cease development of new content for the game by June 2018. A
Nintendo Switch port of
Friday the 13th: The Game was released in August 2019.
Dead Alliance, a multiplayer
first-person shooter, was developed by
Psyop Games and IllFonic, and released by
Maximum Games in August 2017. The game was previously known as
Moving Hazard. In November 2018, IllFonic opened a second office in
Tacoma, Washington, with an initial seven staff members. By January 2019, the Denver headquarters had been relocated to
Golden, Colorado. One of the IllFonic's most recent games,
Predator: Hunting Grounds, was released for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 in April 2020. In January 2020, former
Sony Interactive Entertainment executive Gio Corsi joined IllFonic as
chief product officer. By this time, the company had also opened a third office in
Austin, Texas. == Games developed ==