Bohemia Interactive a.s. is a Czech video game developer and publisher based in Prague. The company focuses on creating military simulation games such as Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and the Arma series. It is also known for having worked on a game conversion of the DayZ mod created for Arma 2.
Founded by Marek Španěl in May 1999, the studio released its first game in 2001, a military shooter titled Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, which received critical acclaim and brought recognition for the studio. Following Operation Flashpoint was a series of downturns, such as porting the game to Xbox, which led to financial losses and the development of a sequel later abandoned by the publisher Codemasters. The studio fell into financial troubles until the United States Marine Corps employed the studio to create simulation games to train soldiers. A new division called Bohemia Interactive Simulations was created, and later spun off and became a standalone business entity. Following Codemasters' decision of not supporting the studio, Bohemia Interactive decided to develop a spiritual successor to Cold War Crisis titled Arma: Armed Assault. It was both a critical and financial success, spawning a number of sequels. Smaller projects such as Take On Helicopters were also released.
In 2012, Dean Hall produced DayZ, a mod for Arma 2, that prompted the studio to develop a standalone game. The same year saw the arrest of two employees of Bohemia, who were charged with espionage by Greece and jailed for 129 days. This event had significantly lowered team morale and forced the team to rename Arma 3's setting to a fictional one.[citation needed] The company is working on several new projects, including making a survival game named Vigor, releasing content patches for DayZ, and developing Ylands, an adventure game which was part of Bohemia Incubator, a platform for Bohemia Interactive to release small, experimental projects.
