The company was founded by
Sergey Orlovskiy on November 18, 1996 as
Nival Interactive, and became famous as the developer of several successful role-playing and strategy series, including
Rage of Mages (known as
Allods in Eastern Europe),
Blitzkrieg, and
Etherlords, all of which would receive sequels. Nival also created the
Silent Storm engine and developed several games using it, beginning with the eponymous
Silent Storm series in 2003. Among these was
Heroes of Might and Magic V and two add-ons, published by
Ubisoft. Nival began to self-publish its own games in 2005. Nival financed and published external developers including KranX Productions, creators of ''
King's Bounty: Legions and Bytex, developers of Berserk Online''. In early 2005, the part of Nival operating under the name Nival Interactive was bought by
Ener1 Group, a Florida-based holdings company, for around $10 million. On November 30, 2007, Sergey Orlovskiy regained full control of Nival Interactive. In early 2010, another part of Nival,
Astrum Nival, was bought by
Digital Sky Technologies for more than $100 million, becoming a part of
Astrum Online Entertainment. Nival's internal development studios became focused on PC and mobile projects. Nival has developed and launched
Prime World, ''
King's Bounty: Legions''. In December 2013, Nival raised $6 million in its Series A funding round led by
Almaz Capital. Almaz Capital ceased to be a shareholder of Nival in May 2024. In 2017, Nival claimed to have released the world's first
neural network AI for the now-defunct RTS game
Blitzkrieg 3. == Technology ==