High Voltage Software

High Voltage Software (HVS) is an American developer based in Hoffman Estates, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Kerry J. Ganofsky founded it in April 1993, straight after college. It started with four employees, working at desks made from old doors laid across sawhorses. Its first games came out in 1995 through Atari, among them White Men Can't Jump and Ruiner Pinball, and in 1996 it worked for Midway on NHL Open Ice and NBA Jam: Tournament Edition, and for Interplay on Tempest X3.

In its early years it made games for a wide range of publishers. Lego Racers (1999), published by Lego Media, is one of its best-known titles, as is Interplay's Hunter: The Reckoning (2002), which was followed in 2003 by Wayward and Redeemer. The same period brought Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude (2004), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), the GameCube version of Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (2005) and Family Guy Video Game! (2006).

In 2008 the studio's leadership said it wanted to raise the quality of third-party games on Wii. To do so it heavily upgraded Quantum3, an engine it had used before, specifically for that console. The result was The Conduit (2009), published by Sega, followed by Conduit 2 (2011). At the same time it was working on The Grinder, a horror shooter first planned for Wii and later redesigned for other platforms. The project cost the company money and jobs, and together with the weak sales of Conduit 2 it led the studio to drop it for good.

Later work included versions of Mortal Kombat (2013) and Injustice: Gods Among Us, Saints Row: Gat out of Hell (2015) for Deep Silver, and virtual reality games for Oculus Studios such as Dragon Front (2016). In December 2014 it announced a satellite studio in Place St. Charles, New Orleans, due to open in early 2015 with staff moved from Illinois. Keywords Studios acquired the company on 15 December 2020. In 2025 it self-published Dragon Front: Adventures for Windows.