Embracer Group has divested Gearbox Leisure from its steady of online game studios, with Take-Two Interactive buying the corporate for $460 million. This sale is a part of Embracer’s huge, ongoing restructuring designed to chop prices after a deliberate $2 billion cope with Saudi Arabia-backed Savvy Video games Group fell via in 2023. The sale comes three years after Embracer acquired Gearbox for $1.3 billion in 2021.
This transfer means Embracer not owns Gearbox’s growth entities, similar to Gearbox Software program, Gearbox Montreal, and Gearbox Studio Quebec, nor franchises similar to Borderlands/Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Homeworld, Threat of Rain, Brothers in Arms, and Duke Nukem. These belongings can be acquired by Take-Two, which owns Rockstar Video games and 2K, amongst different labels. Closing of the transaction is anticipated to happen in fiscal 12 months Q1 2024/25, pending customary regulatory approvals.
In a press launch from Take-Two, Gearbox confirms it has six titles within the works. 5 are sequels, and two of these sequels are from the Borderlands and Homeworld franchises. It additionally has an introduced new IP in growth.
Nonetheless, Embracer does retain different branches/subsidiaries of Gearbox. That features Gearbox Publishing San Fransisco (quickly to be renamed), which has publishing rights to the Remnant franchise, Hyper Mild Breaker, and different upcoming unannounced titles. Moreover, Embracer is preserving Cryptic Studios (Neverwinter On-line, Star Trek On-line), Misplaced Boys Interactive, and Captured Dimensions. In response to the press launch, these corporations can be “welcomed and built-in into different elements of Embracer Group within the coming interval.”
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
In a press launch, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors writes,
“At the moment’s announcement marks the results of the ultimate structured divestment course of and is a crucial step in remodeling Embracer into the longer term with notably decrease web debt and improved free money stream. By the transaction, we decrease enterprise threat and enhance profitability as we transition to changing into a leaner and extra centered firm. After evaluating a number of choices for Gearbox, I’m blissful that we have now reached an answer that’s in the perfect curiosity of all stakeholders. Randy and the staff have been nice staff members all through the previous years, and I want to thank all of them for that. As one of many world’s best video games builders, I’m assured that Gearbox will proceed to innovate and thrive of their new residence inside Take-Two.”
Gearbox founder and CEO Randy Pitchford provides,
”As a big long-term Embracer Group shareholder, I consider within the technique for the Embracer Group going ahead and am utterly satisfied that this transaction is the very best situation and an apparent web optimistic association for Embracer Group, for TakeTwo and, in fact, for Gearbox Leisure. My main curiosity is at all times Gearbox, together with our expertise and our clients. I need to personally guarantee followers of our video games that this association will be certain that the experiences we have now in growth at Gearbox would be the greatest it may possibly presumably be.”
Earlier this month, Embracer introduced it was promoting Saber Interactive for $500 million. It has additionally laid off workers throughout a number of studios, canceled a mess of in-development video games, and shut down Free Radical Design and Volition Video games solely.
