The Embracer Group, a Swedish holding company currently undergoing significant restructuring, has confirmed its plans to sell subsidiary Saber Interactive along with several of its assets.
A deal has been formed with Beacon Interactive, a company controlled by Saber co-founder and CEO Matthew Karch, to acquire Saber Interactive for $247 million.
Apart from Saber Interactive, the deal also includes the handover of all other Saber-branded studios such as 3D Realms, Slipgate Ironworks, Nimble Giant, Mad Head Games, New World Interactive, Sandbox Strategies, Fractured Byte, and DIGIC.
Beacon also retains an option to acquire from Embracer two more studios – 4A Games and Zen Studios, although the rights to the Metro franchise will remain with the publisher Plaion within the holding.
Embracer’s sold assets include 38 games under development, while it retains 14 projects (including two in collaboration with Beacon), including:
- the next AAA game from 4A Games;
- an unannounced AAA game in the concept stage;
- an announced AAA game based on a major license (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake?);
- a multiplayer AAA shooter from an Embracer-owned franchise;
- an AA game from the Asmodee franchise;
- an AA game from 34 Big Things based on an Embracer-owned franchise;
- Killing Floor 3;
- Teardown; and
- all future and released games from Zen Studios, Aspyr, and Tripwire.
Following this transaction, Embracer will cease operations in Russia: all Russian employees will be transferred to new structures under local management, which will cooperate with Beacon, and Embracer will dissolve its Russian entities.
Lars Wingefors, Embracer’s CEO, expressed that the agreement reached is beneficial to both parties and marks an important step in the company’s transformation “for the benefit of all employees, gamers, and shareholders”.
