Austrian game publisher THQ Nordic — the company behind upcoming titles like Darksiders III and BioMutant — could have had quite the showing at this year’s E3 event in June. However, the publisher won’t be in attendance, as its employees will apparently be too busy watching the FIFA World Cup.
“It is with great regret that we at THQ Nordic must report that we will be unable to miss a single moment of this great sporting event,” the company said in a press release. “Therefore, we will be forced to stay in our lovely Viennese beer gardens, blowing the froth off a couple, watching football and one or two cool press conferences on Twitch (looking at you, Devolver) instead of rocking it ourselves.”
You’ll still be able to see THQ Nordic’s lineup of games before the summer is over, however. The publisher will have a presence at Gamescom in August, following by PAX West. In addition to the aforementioned games, Fade to Silence, Wreckfest, and unannounced games will be on display at the events.
Darksiders III has been a long time coming. The sequel to 2012’s Darksiders II, the game is being developed by Gunfire Games, a studio made of former Vigil Games employees. Vigil previously developed the series as a THQ-owned studio before the publisher went bankrupt. The rights to the THQ name were eventually purchased by Nordic, allowing the series to (kind of) come full circle.
BioMutant, on the other hand, is an original new game from Experiment 101, a studio featuring former Mad Max and Just Cause developers. We’ve liked what we’ve seen so far, though we felt its martial arts combat still had room for improvement.
Though publisher Deep Silver is now a subsidiary of THQ Nordic, the latter publisher’s decision to skip E3 will not affect Deep Silver. Digital Trends reached out to Deep Silver and we were told it would be operating as a “separate entity.” This means we’ll likely see the return of its shooter Metro: Exodus, which is scheduled to arrive to consoles and PC later this year. Coincidentally, the Metro series originally began under THQ, as well, before it was sold to Deep Silver in 2013.
Updated with confirmation that Deep Silver will still attend E3.
