Since game publisher THQ went bankrupt and sold its game properties to several different companies in 2013, the Saints Row and Metro games have been published by Deep Silver. But that is about to change — kind of — as Deep Silver has itself been purchased by none other than Darksiders III publisher THQ Nordic.
THQ Nordic, which renamed itself following Nordic Games’ acquisition of the THQ name in 2014, announced on February 14 that it had acquired Deep Silver parent company Koch Media for 121 million euros, or nearly $149 million. The deal gives THQ Nordic property rights for the Saints Row, Homefront, Risen, Galaxy on Fire, and Dead Island series, as well as the “exclusive license” for 4A Games’ Metro first-person shooter series. THQ Nordic will also receive the Volition, Fishlabs, and Deep Silver Dambuster studios with the acquisition.
“Koch Media has a long history of profitability despite losses incurred from some less successful game releases,” said THQ Nordic CEO Lars Wingefors in the announcement. “THQ Nordic is convinced that the development studios of Deep Silver as part of THQ Nordic will successfully deliver at least four ongoing AAA game projects including Metro: Exodus as well as the next Volition Studio AAA release and the next Dambuster Studio AAA release, together with a number of other game development and publishing titles.”
Those “less successful game releases” have been pretty frequent for Deep Silver in recent years. Agents of Mayhem received far lower reviews than other Saints Row games and developer Volition suffered layoffs shortly after its release, and Homefront: The Revolution suffered a tumultuous development and released in a broken state. Dead Island 2 was announced in 2014 but still hasn’t released, with Deep Silver parting ways with developer Yager in favor of Sumo Digital.
Koch Media will still operate as its own company following the acquisition, and it appears the Deep Silver name will still be used for publishing games. However, we wouldn’t be surprised if series formerly associated with THQ are published by THQ Nordic directly.
One of Deep Silver’s biggest games, Metro: Exodus, is featured in this month’s issue of Game Informer. The game is scheduled to launch this fall for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
