Embracer seems to be on a quest to purchase every indie developer under the sun. Earlier this month, the Swedish holding company announced eight more companies would fall under its banner, including Duke Numem's 3D Realms, Israel-based CrazyLabs, Deep Rock Galactic makers Ghost Ship Games, Hundtown developer Easy Trigger, VR developer Force Field, Road 96 creator Digixart, Ghostrunner publisher Slipgate Ironworks, and Viking-themed merchandise maker Grimfrost.
Today, Embracer is announcing three more purchases alongside its most recent earnings report (which had relatively good news, as you'd expect from a company buying up almost a dozen studios in a single month).
First up, Embracer is purchasing Estonia-based Fractured Byte, port specialists who worked on the Switch ports of both Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 and Borderlands: The Legendary Collection. Second is Demiurge Studios, a company with a long history of helping out other AAA developers on games like BioShock, Mass Effect, and the Borderlands series. Demiurge was previously under Sega's banner but the studio co-founders repurchased the company in 2020.
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As noted by GamesIndustry.biz, both Fractured Byte and Demiurge have worked with Gearbox before on various Borderlands projects, which might prove useful for the future of the franchise. Gearbox was also purchased by Embracer Group last year for $1.3 billion.
And finally, Embracer has bought Russian developer SmartPhone Labs, whose work includes a mobile port for Mudrunner and the World War Z Switch port. All three purchases were made under Embracer's Saber Interactive subsidiary, of which SmartPhone has a previous working relationship.
Details of the purchases were not disclosed, but they all involve an upfront amount as well as additional payouts based on performance. At this rate, we should expect most indie developers to have been purchased by Embracer by the end of the year.
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