In May 1999, John De Margheriti, CEO of Micro Forté, visited Interplay with a pitch for an isometric scrolling shooter called Chimera (a.k.a. Chimera Project). Interplay was impressed with the quality of the demo, but was not interested in the game itself. However Brian Christian, the head of 14 Degrees East, saw enough potential in Chimera engine to propose the idea of doing a tactical combat game set in Black Isle's postapocalyptic Fallout world. The large part of Chimera engine was rewritten on fly during the development of Fallout Tactics. So the new engine emerged - Phoenix.