Embracer Group had announced the purchase of studios behind Tomb Raider and Deus Ex games from Square Enix. Now that deal has completed.
Embracer Group and Square Enix are two huge names in the gaming industry. While Embracer Group is a Swedish company with a huge amount of gaming studios under it. Square Enix is a Japanese company which concentrates more on Japanese type of games.
Embracer Group owns THQ Nordic, Koch Media (Deep Silver, Milestone), Coffee Stain Holding, Saber Interactive, DECA Games, Gearbox Software among others. The gaming franchise catalog of these studios is too enormous to even mention.
Square Enix on the other hand owns game franchises of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Mana, Chrono, Front Mission, Tactics Ogre, Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, Drakengard, Fullmetal Alchemist and much more. This list had Tomb Raider and Deus Ex in them too, until recently.
In May, Embracer Group had announced the purchase of studios behind Tomb Raider and Deus Ex games from Square Enix for an ultra-cheap $300 million. Today, that deal is now officially completed.
Tomb Raider and Deus Ex Sale Complete
In a blog post, Embracer Group has announced that their acquisition of the studios behind Tomb Raider and Deus Ex is now complete. Namely, the studios are of Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal and Square Enix Montreal. Their sale means both the gaming franchise now belong to them.
Frankly speaking, this might be a good thing for these franchises. This is due to Embracer Group’s track record. In July this year, Aspyr Media, one of the studios from the Embracer Group, which was working behind cult-hit Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) remake, decided to cancel the project. It was revealed that Aspyr Media was highly unhappy with the game’s expensively made demo. They even removed the design and art directors behind it from the company for it.
While any company would sit on the franchises doing nothing. While KOTOR remake was stated to be delayed indefinitely, Embracer Group however has another plans. It has given Saber Interactive, another Embracer Group studio, the game instead. This shows Embracer Group is not interested is franchises go to waste and Tomb Raider and Deus Ex games are possibly in good hands.
Square Enix And It’s Future
From some time now, Square Enix is trying to get rid of it’s west based gaming catalog to concentrate on its Japanese games. Some time ago, there were rumors that it might even be bought by Sony, or at least some part of it. Buy and sell is nothing new in gaming industry. So this should not be taken as a setback to Square Enix. It’s a major player in the Japanese gaming industry and it will remain so unless completely sold, which seems unlikely from the looks of it.
