Video game studio acquisitions are happening all over the place these days. For as often as a smaller studio is scooped up by a bigger publisher, there are also plenty of companies selling off their teams to new owners. Now that the Embracer Group has its hands on some new properties, it’s planning a lot more games for those franchises.
Square Enix sold off Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, Square Enix Montreal, and more of its western studios for $300 million, giving the Embracer Group the rights to the likes of Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain, and others. Now that the group’s latest financial report is out, we know what it wants to do with those properties. The report doesn’t speak about them monetarily of course — Embracer only just came into ownership — but it does lay out the group’s big plans. “We further strengthened our development capabilities and IP portfolio by entering into an agreement to acquire Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal, including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain, and other IPs,” it reads on page four. “We see a great potential, not only in sequels, but also in remakes, remasters, [and] spinoffs, as well as transmedia projects.” That last one might raise some concerns regarding new media like NFTs (which developers are not interested in, by and large), but we’ll have to wait and see what “transmedia” means to Embracer.
Still, with wording like that, we can certainly expect to see a lot more games in those series in the future. Furthermore, the sale doesn’t seem to be negatively affecting existing production cycles at the studios involved. Perfect Dark development is continuing as before, for example. This is important because developer Crystal Dynamics is partnered with first-party Xbox studio The Initiative on the upcoming game.
This purchase marks the latest in a long line of Embracer Group acquisitions. Borderlands developer Gearbox was picked up by the group in February of last year, and World War Z maker Saber Interactive was acquired the year before.
