Embracer Group has reportedly put Borderlands creator Gearbox up for sale

Borderlands developer Gearbox is reportedly up for sale by parent company Embracer Group. As per Reuters, the Swedish conglomerate is looking to restructure following a $2 billion (about Rs. 16,586 crore) deal with Saudi Arabia government-funded Savvy Games Group that fell through, earlier this year. The fallout resulted in the former cutting down on spending, in addition to closing down studios and laying off its employees. Having been acquired merely two-and-a-half years ago, Gearbox is now the latest victim, with some alleged third-party publishers expressing interest in acquiring the developer. No names were mentioned, though they were described as “international gaming groups.”

Following the initial Reuters story, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier observed that while it has not been confirmed if Gearbox would be sold, Embracer is trying to split ways with it. Gearbox CCO Dan Hewitt stated in an email to employees, "The base case is that Gearbox remains a part of Embracer." However, various possibilities are being considered, including Gearbox's transfer, becoming independent of Gearbox, and others. Finally, we'll choose whichever course is best for both Gearbox and Embracer." Embracer offloaded the Saints Row studio Volition earlier this month, thus closing it down after 30 years in the game development field, likely due to the critical and commercial failure of its latest open-world relaunch, as Embracer indicated in its 2023 financial report.

Embracer has spent the last few years swiping game studios and building an empire, bringing together coveted developers such as Tomb Raider's Crystal Dynamics, Remnant II's THQ Nordic, Dead Island 2's Deep Silver, as well as franchising rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. This clearly came at a high cost, which was first paid by the aforementioned Savvy Games Group's $1 billion investment. However, in May, the latter withdrew, leaving Embracer to cope with the debt.

Embracer Group stated earlier this year that Amazon Games' Orange County Studio — the same developers who previously worked on New World — will be developing an MMO version of The Lord of the Rings. The title is still in the works and will include stories from the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit authored by author J.R.R. Tolkien. In February, the conglomerate confirmed that it was working on five video games based on the Middle-earth franchise, one of which was the critically panned The Lord of the Rings: Gollum game, which resulted in Daedalic Entertainment closing down its development division.

In the middle of all of this restructuring controversy, Crystal Dynamics sent an open letter to fans reassuring them that the Embracer reorganization program will have no affect on the production of the future Tomb Raider game. The parent business is also behind the long-awaited remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which transferred studios from Aspyr Media to Saber Interactive in August 2022, following the termination of two prominent staffers.

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