Troubled gaming conglomerate Embracer introduced Thursday that it has agreed to promote Gearbox Leisure, the studio behind the Borderlands video games, to Grand Theft Auto writer Take-Two for $460 million.
The deal makes lots of sense — Take-Two has been the writer for Borderlands by its 2K Video games label since lengthy earlier than Gearbox was acquired by Embracer in 2021. In its press launch, 2K mentioned the following Borderlands sport was in lively improvement at Gearbox.
As a part of the deal, Take-Two acquires the Borderlands franchise and its spinoff sequence Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, in addition to the Homeworld, Threat of Rain, Brothers in Arms, and Duke Nukem sequence. The studios acquired by Take-Two are the Gearbox Software program mothership in Frisco, Texas, in addition to Gearbox Montréal and Gearbox Studio Quebec.
Embracer is hanging on to some components of the Gearbox empire: Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (which properly be renamed), together with the publishing rights to the Remnant video games and Hyper Mild Breaker; Cryptic Studios, the massively multiplayer specialist, with its video games Neverwinter On-line and Star Trek On-line; and help studios Misplaced Boys Interactive and Captured Dimensions.
“As a big long-term Embracer Group shareholder, I imagine within the technique for the Embracer Group going ahead and am fully satisfied that this transaction is the absolute best state of affairs and an apparent web optimistic association for Embracer Group, for Take-Two and, in fact, for Gearbox Leisure,” mentioned Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford. “My major curiosity is at all times Gearbox, together with our expertise and our clients. I wish to personally guarantee followers of our video games that this association will be certain that the experiences now we have in improvement at Gearbox would be the finest it could presumably be.”
For Embracer, the sale of Gearbox — considered one of its most prized belongings — is the following step in a deep cost-cutting and restructuring course of the corporate started final 12 months after a reported $2 billion deal fell by. As a part of its restructuring, Embracer laid off at the least 900 folks. Previous to its monetary difficulties, the Swedish group, which started life as Nordic Video games, had been on a wild acquisition spree that included the acquisition of board sport large Asmodee, Sq. Enix’s Western studios and franchises together with Tomb Raider, and the media rights for The Lord of the Rings.
Embracer additionally introduced that it had accomplished the sale of one other of its largest studio teams, Saber Interactive, which it acquired in 2020. Saber’s founder Matthew Karch purchased again the primary Saber Interactive studio and a number of other subsidiaries for $247 million, whereas Embracer retained Metro developer 4A Video games, Aspyr, and others. Saber has the appropriate to amass 4A and pinball specialist Zen Studios inside a sure time interval, though publishing rights for the Metro video games will stick with Embracer’s subsidiary Plaion. Saber is reportedly nonetheless collaborating with Embracer on the troubled remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Previous Republic.