Avalanche Software was founded by four
programmers formerly of
Sculptured Software, including John Blackburn. After Sculptured Software had been acquired by
Acclaim Entertainment, the four had been in contact with another former Sculptured Software staffer who left the year prior for
Saffire. The four were interested in joining Saffire, which was seeking programmers for an upcoming project, but did not want to commute to the company's offices in
Pleasant Grove. Instead, Saffire's owner convinced them to start their own company. Subsequently, Blackburn and his acquaintances established Avalanche in October 1995, with Blackburn becoming the company's
president. Buena Vista Games established a sister studio to Avalanche,
Fall Line Studio, in November 2006. The studio was merged into Avalanche in January 2009. In January 2013, Avalanche unveiled the
toys-to-life cross-platform game
Disney Infinity. On May 10, 2016, due to a lack of growth in the toys-to-life market and increasing development costs, Disney discontinued
Disney Infinity and closed down Disney Interactive Studios, including Avalanche. Many former Avalanche workers were hired by
castAR to create a new studio in Salt Lake City. On January 24, 2017, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (now Warner Bros. Games) announced that it had acquired and re-opened the studio, with Blackburn returning as its
chief executive officer. The studio's first title under the new ownership was
Cars 3: Driven to Win. In February 2021, game director Troy Leavitt received backlash for his social media posts that supported
cultural appropriation and
Gamergate. This led to his resignation from Avalanche Software and the
Hogwarts Legacy project. He claimed that his exit was not a result of the criticism, and Warner Bros. chose not to address the situation.
Hogwarts Legacy was released in 2023 as Avalanche's first non-Disney game since it was acquired by Warner Bros. Games. The open-world action role-playing game was published by the publisher
Portkey Games, which is also owned by Warner Bros. Games. The game was officially announced as part of the
PlayStation 5 Showcase on September 16, 2020 and was subsequently named "Star of the Evening" by the daily newspaper Die Welt. It has been released for
PlayStation 5,
Xbox Series X/S,
Windows,
PlayStation 4,
Xbox One,
Nintendo Switch, and
Nintendo Switch 2. == Games developed ==