Trecision was Italy's biggest game studio — then its publisher went bankrupt

Trecision was founded in 1991 in Rapallo, Italy, by Pietro Montelatici, Fabrizio Lagorio, and Edoardo Gervino. The company developed adventure games for PC, including Profezia, Ark of Time, and the acclaimed Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy (co-developed with Team17). In 2000 it acquired two Italian studios, Pixelstorm and MotherBrain, becoming the largest game developer in Italy.

Trecision's growth was built on partnerships with larger publishers. Its most important partner was Cryo Interactive, a French game publisher that funded and distributed several of Trecision's titles. In March 2001, Cryo published The Watchmaker, Trecision's most ambitious game. The partnership deepened when Trecision began developing two new games for Cryo — Popeye: Hush Rush for Spinach and Zidane Football Generation.

In July 2002, Cryo Interactive filed for insolvency, triggered by the commercial failure of Frank Herbert's Dune. Cryo was liquidated in October 2002, laying off over 80% of its workforce. Trecision was left with two games in development and no publisher to fund or distribute them. The company managed to acquire the rights to its Cryo projects, but Popeye was cancelled entirely and Zidane Football Generation was stripped of its license and released without the Zidane brand.

Without Cryo's payments, Trecision could not meet its obligations. The company filed for voluntary liquidation in mid-2003 and ceased operations. The PS2 version of Football Generation was not released until 2006 — three years after Trecision's closure. The studio that had been Italy's largest game developer was gone, brought down by a single partner's collapse.