Recap: Embracer Group, the new owner of the studios behind Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Hitman, says that it wants to pump out a bunch of new content for some of its acquisitions' most popular IPs. An earnings report indicated an interest in producing remakes, sequels, and even movies. Nothing is in the works yet as far as we know, but with the company turning record profits, work will likely start soon.
On Friday, Embracer Group, the holding company for numerous game studios, published its earnings for its fiscal year ending in March 2022. The numbers look solid, with the company reporting SEK 5.23 billion (US $524 million) for Q4 and SEK 17.04 billion (US $1.71 billion) for the year. Compared to last year, that's 117- and 89-percent growth, respectively.
Unsurprisingly, 84 percent of its overall earnings were from its games division which saw 114-percent growth over 2021 to SEK 4.42 billion (US $443 million) in Q4. The company saw similar increases for the year with games pulling in SEK 13.94 billion (US $1.4 billion) in FY21/22.
Forecasts for Embarcer only look more promising with its acquisition of Eidos Montréal, Crystal Dynamics, and Square Enix Montréal game studios. The company said it would immediately put that investment to work by capitalizing on those developers' biggest franchises.
"After the end of the quarter, we further strengthened our development capabilities and IP-portfolio by entering into an agreement to acquire Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal, including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief and Legacy of Kain and other IPs. The announcement got an overwhelming and positive response. We see a great potential, not only in sequels, but also in remakes, remasters, spinoffs as well as transmedia projects across the Group."
This plan could mean we will soon be seeing everything from reboots to movies and merchandise from series like Tomb Raider and others. We haven't seen a new Tomb Raider game since Shadow launched in 2018. Deus Ex has been collecting dust since 2016. And Theif hasn't had a proper entry since Thief: Deadly Shadows in 2004 (we shall not count the shoddy 2014 Thief remake). The Legacy of Kain series is even more neglected, having been abandoned in 2003 with LoK: Defiance.
Of course, at this point, it's all just potential. Embracer did not indicate that anything was currently in the works. However, the firm is anxious to put these studios to work as soon as the deal closes, sometime between July and September. So, it might not be too long before we get official public announcements and more elaboration on these plans.
https://www.techspot.com/news/94669-embracer-group-plans-big-push-long-neglected-franchises.html
