Embracer Group, the Swedish video game holding company and parent company of Gearbox, Saber Interactive and THQ Nordic (among many others), has entered into an agreement to purchase more studios and a selection of IP from Square Enix.
Included in the agreement are three studios – Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix Montréal and Eidos-Montréal – plus a catalog of IP and games including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Cain and over 50 “back-catalog” titles. The acquisition will include over 1,100 employees across the three studios, with the total purchase price totaling $ 300 million.
The news was announced via a press release from both companies. Embracer expects the transaction to “close during the second quarter of Embracer’s fiscal year 22/23 (July-September 2022)”.
Square Enix states in its press release that “The transaction enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in areas including blockchain, AI and the cloud.” The Japanese company also says it “will continue to release franchises such as Just Cause, Outriders and Life is Strange”.
Upon completion of this transaction, the United States will be Embracers’ # 1 country in terms of number of game developers, and Canada will be # 2. In total, after pending closures, Embracer will have more than 14,000 employees, 10,000 dedicated game developers and 124 in-house studios. Embracer’s upcoming content pipeline includes more than 230 games with more than 30 AAA games. This acquisition will bring further scale to Embracer’s current AAA segment, and Embracer will have one of the largest pipelines of PC / console game content across the industry, across all genres.
This is the latest in a series of high-profile acquisitions in the video game industry, where Microsoft is in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard for $ 68.7 billion, after acquiring Bethesda and its IP in 2020.