Synergistic was founded in 1978 by Robert Clardy and Ann Dickens Clardy. One of the earliest successful third-party software developers for the Apple II platform, they are most well-known for their Dungeons & Dragons inspired Dungeon Campaign / Wilderness Campaign game, which was later expanded and repackaged as Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure. Dungeon Campaign / Wilderness Campaign is one of the earliest D&D-like games that is epic in scope (compared to the more commonplace "dungeon crawl" games, such as Temple of Apshai. Synergistic also published a number of business applications, including a word processor and a simple database program.
Unlike many other companies that could or did not make the jump to other platforms, Synergistic continued as an independent developer as the IBM PC DOS platform became dominant.
Synergistic was acquired by Sierra in 1996. They maintained their identity as an independent development group within Sierra for several years and developed "Birthright: the Gorgon's Alliance", the remake of Thexder for Windows 95, Football Pro 98 and the Diablo's expansion Pack "Hellfire" (which was the only Blizzard game developed by a Sierra studio). They were closed on February 22 1999, along with Sierra's Oakhurst studio, as part of Sierra's restructuring plan.
