Embracer Group erwirbt Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix Montreal, Eidos-Montréal, Plus-IPs für $300 Million

Embracer-Gruppe, the Swedish video game holding company and parent of Gearbox, Saber Interactive and THQ Nordic (unter vielen anderen), has entered into an agreement to acquire several studios and a selection of IP from Square Enix.

Included in the deal are three studios — Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix Montreal, and Eidos-Montréal — plus a catalogue of IP and games including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Erbe von Kain and over 50 “back-catalogue” Titel. The acquisition will include over 1,100 employees across the three studios, with the total purchase price totalling $300 Millionen.

The news was put out via a press release from both companies. Embracer expects the deal “to close during the second quarter of Embracer’s financial year 22/23 (Juli September 2022)”.

Square Enix states in its press release dass “the Transaction enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in fields including blockchain, AI, and the cloud.” The Japanese company also says that it “will continue to publish franchises such as Just Cause, Vorreiter, und Life is Strange“.

After closing this transaction, the US will be Embracer’s #1 country by number of game developers and Canada will be #2. In Summe, post pending closings, Embracer will have more than 14,000 Mitarbeiter, 10,000 engaged game developers, und 124 internal studios. Embracer’s upcoming content pipeline includes more than 230 games with more than 30 AAA-Spiele. This acquisition will bring additional scale to Embracer’s current AAA segment, and Embracer will have one of the largest pipelines of PC/Console games content across the industry, quer durch alle Genres.

This is the latest in a series of high profile acquisitions in the video game industry, with Microsoft in the process of a $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, after picking up Bethesda and its IP in 2020.