While Embracer Group let Saber Interactive go at the beginning of the month, we learned today that the company has just sold Gearbox to Take-Two!
Take-Two buys Gearbox!
The rumors were therefore true and the transaction, worth 460 million dollars, allows Take-Two toacquire the studios and certain Gearbox licenses, such as Risk of Rain, Duke Nukem, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Brothers in Arms, and obviously Borderlands:
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Our acquisition of Gearbox is an exciting moment for Take-Two and will strengthen our top-tier creative talent and intellectual property portfolio, including the iconic Borderlands franchise. This combination improves the financial profile of our existing projects with Gearbox and gives us the opportunity to increase long-term growth by leveraging all of Take-Two's resources across all of Gearbox's exciting initiatives.”
For its part, Embracer retains the rights to the Remnant and Hyper Light Breaker series, as well as “other notable unannounced games”.
The company noted furthermore that the sale of Gearbox marks “the culmination of the final structured divestment process and constitutes an important step in transforming Embracer into the future with significantly lower net debt and improved free cash flow”:
Through this transaction, we reduce business risk and improve profitability as we move toward a leaner, more focused business. After evaluating several options for Gearbox, I am pleased that we have arrived at a solution that is in the best interest of all stakeholders.
The next Borderlands is in active development
The next Borderlands game has been teased by the company for several months, while a film will be released in theaters next August. Alongside the announcement of the takeover, it is today confirmed, without any real surprise, that Borderlands 4 is in “active development”:
We are excited to welcome Randy Pitchford and his team of passionate and talented developers to 2K and look forward to launching many projects in the future as colleagues. We've loved our partnership with Gearbox on every iteration of the Borderlands franchise and are excited to be actively working on developing the next installment in the series.
We can't wait to see what the teams are preparing for this new episode, after a 3rd opus received quite timidly by the players.
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It is also specified that Gearbox will operate as a studio within 2K and that it will be led by Randy Pitchford, and we obviously hope that the teams will be able to fully flourish under the leadership of Take-Two.