Black Forest THQ Nordic

THQ Nordic Acquire Bubsy Revival Devs Black Forest Games

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Published: August 25, 2017 9:20 AM

As one of their gamescom announcements, THQ Nordic announced that they are acquiring Black Forest Games, known for their work on Giana SistersRogue Stormers, and Helldorado.

THQ Nordic is acquiring 100% of the studio, but all five founders and all of the 50 members of the studio will stay on board with the studio. Beyond that, they are working on a new unannounced project for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, with promises of more details on it coming soon.

Beyond that unannounced project, Black Forest Games is also currently working as the developers on Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back, a revival project for Bubsy the Bobcat by the newly revived Accolade. The release date for Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back was recently announced along with the collector's edition for it.

Black Forest Games was founded in 2012 after the closure of Spellbound Entertainment, with almost all of the employees of that studio moving over. At the time, the company was almost certainly not helped by the lukewarm reception to their take on the Gothic series in Arcania - Gothic 4 or eventually its expansion Arcania: Fall of Setarrif. Even more of a problem for them, the publisher of Arcania, JoWooD, ended up going bankrupt delaying the expansion until after Nordic Games had bought up most of JoWooD and its brands, and released the expansion. Nordic Games would go onto become THQ Nordic and as of this announcement, eventually, buy the successor to Spellbound Entertainment in Black Forest Games.


Quick Take

On the surface this appears to be a pretty good deal for everyone; THQ Nordic gets a skilled developer and Black Forest Games gets a partner who respects it and they know well from working with. Their history on Arcania is a bit of a splotch given how that turned out, but both companies have done good work on their own, so hopefully this works out and Black Forest Games and THQ Nordic do some good things together.

What do you think of this acquisition? What project would you like to hear Black Forest Games is working on? Share your thoughts in the comments below!


Don Parsons
| Senior Writer

A longtime lover of speculative fiction, in almost all its forms, Don joined TechRaptor in 2014 on a whim sending in an application as he was looking for… More about Don