Swedish developer Tarsier Studios has a brand new owner in Embracer Group. The name might not seem familiar, but all you need to know is that they’re the parent company of THQ Nordic, the video game publisher that has been on a tear acquiring video game studios as of late. Interestingly enough, THQ Nordic didn’t make the purchase as Embracer Group seems to have made the deal themselves. Announced via a detailed press release, Embracer competed the acquisition by buying Tarsier and some of their IPs for roughly SEK 88 million in cash, ($9.4 million USD) and an additional SEK 11 million ($1.2 million USD) in Embracer B-shares.
Tarsier Studios has worked with Media Molecule with their main IPs LittleBigPlanet and Tearaway for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita. Tarsier also had a big hand in the development of Tearaway Unfolded, the PS4 version of Tearaway. However, the company’s most well known IP is 2017’s Little Nightmares, a platform-puzzle game with horror elements. The game was received fairly well by the video game community, and it was more than enough for the company to warrant sequel, Little Nightmares II, which is due for a tentative 2020 release.
Despite the full acquisition by Embracer Group, the actual rights to the IP Little Nightmares belong to the publisher Bandai Namco, and therefore are not part of the former’s purchase. Tarsier will continue developing Little Nightmares II for Bandai Namco, and once that ships out they’ll begin making new titles for Embracer. Another title that Tarsier developed was The Stretchers for the Nintendo Switch. This was also off the table as part of the acquisition due to Nintendo holding the rights to that franchise. Regardless, this is yet another big win for the THQ Nordic family/company as they continue to expand into one of the largest companies in the world. Hopefully they don’t have any more AMA’s on questionable websites in the future.