In news you probably didn't expect to hear today, Frontier Developments has acquired its first studio in Complex Games. Frontier Developments is the publisher and developer of games like Elite Dangerous, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and the recently beleaguered F1 Manager 2022. As for Complex Games, it's recently developed a game that Frontier Developments published in Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters.
Frontier Developments originally began publishing third-party titles in 2019 with an eye for eventually finding and acquiring developers like Complex Games, which hails from Manitoba, Canada. After working with Complex Games on Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate, Frontier says it enjoyed the "terrific" experience so much that it acquired the team as its first studio purchase.
Noah Decter-Jackson, CEO of Complex Games, had this to say about the acquisition:
“Working with Frontier on Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters has been a great experience and I am excited about our growth plans for our Winnipeg studio. I am really proud of Complex Games’ achievements and I’d like to thank everyone who has been involved with that success over many years. I look forward to developing even more great games in the future as part of Frontier.”
Currently, the plan for Complex Games is to grow the company from the 20-strong team and develop more ambitious titles. Complex is also going to continue "nurturing" Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, which makes sense. The genre is built for impactful DLC and updates like XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, and while we probably won't receive anything on that scale, with more money and team members we might see something like that become a reality sooner rather than later.
Outside of XCOM 2, the genre hasn't really seen any higher-budget titles in recent years. That changed this year with the very good King Arthur: Knight's Tale and the aforementioned Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters. Both King Arthur and Chaos Gate have done well, so we should hopefully see sequels or similar games of that scope in the future. We'll see.
For more information on future studio acquisitions, stay tuned to TechRaptor.
