Developer Saber Interactive, makers of World War Z and helping in the Nintendo Switch port of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt has been acquired by Embracer Group, formerly known as THQ Nordic AB. Embracer Group has bought several studios in recent years as part of its strategy in expansion. They also acquired the Little Nightmares developer and have created several new studios as well. This deal is the company’s largest yet with $150 million being offered up front and $375 million in the coming years based off of performance. Last year, Saber Interactive made over $100 million.
In a statement, Lars Wingefors Embracer Group CEO said, “Saber has been on our radar for a very long time because of their deep history of consistently high-quality work. Their ambitious moves towards self-funding projects in recent years have been particularly impressive, especially with World War Z, which sold more than three million units. While Saber will remain a standalone company within Embracer Group, we look forward to collaborating with them to elevate their ability to create and market premier titles.”
Saber Interactive was founded in 2001 and they have grown to about 600 staff across five studios. The developer will become the fifth subsidiary of Embracer Group but it will maintain autonomy and no plans have been made for a restructure or cost-saving measures. With this deal, Saber Interactive Co-Founders Matthew Karch and Audrey Jones will become Embracer Group’s second largest shareholder.
Speaking about the new partnership, Matthew Karch said: “Over the course of 19 years as an independent developer, Saber has had its share of suitors. With Embracer Group, we’ve at last found the perfect partner. We could not be more thrilled to see through the many projects we’ve dreamed of together.”
In other Saber Interactive related news, the Nintendo Switch version of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, which Saber helped bring to the platform for CD Projekt Red received a new patch that provides graphics options to the game and allows players to bring in their saves from the Steam and GOG versions of the game on PC. The developers have stated that this cross-save featured was only designed for the Nintendo Switch and there are no plans to bring the feature to other platforms.