This gaming franchise was supposed to be the next big thing — then the studio imploded

The state of Rhode Island bet $75 on 38 Studios — and lost If I’m lucky enough to avoid traffic, it’s about a 10-minute drive from my house to reach downtown Providence. Within a tight few square blocks, there’s a charming assortment of restaurants, cocktail bars, concert and theater venues, and other little gems. Once upon a time, it was also home to one of the most ambitious video game studios in the industry’s history. This May will mark 14 years since Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios suddenly ceased all operations and laid off hundreds of employees just a few short months after its only game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, was released. To the rest of the world, the story of 38 Studios is an oft-forgotten blip. To those of us that live in Rhode Island, it’s a quiet ghost, the kind of thing you don’t think about until you’re walking downtown and remember that, for a time, one of the most ambitious fantasy worlds in gaming was being built just a few blocks away. I was fresh out of college in the summer of 2011, living at my parents’ house in northern RI. I picked up Dragon Age 2 on a whim. But I was enticed by the demo for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning that came with it. I didn’t know