Gearbox Entertainment confirms layoffs following sale from Embracer

Embracer Group has announced its intention to transform into three standalone publicly listed entities: Asmodee Group, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends.

Swedish game and media holding company Embracer Group has announced its plans to split into three separate entities.

Embracer Group, the embattled gaming conglomerate that owns the rights to 'The Lord of the Rings' franchise, has announced that it is splitting into three different companies. The group, which went through significant restructuring this year and sold off major game studios like Saber Interactive and Gearbox to reduce debt, will separate into Asmodee Group, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends. The three games and entertainment companies will be standalone, publicly listed entities, Embracer said, with the split “enabling each entity to better focus on their respective core strategies and offer more differentiated and distinct equity stories for existing and new shareholders.”

Famed mass-layoff-manufacturing corporation Embracer Group are dividing into three companies, which will be listed separately on Sweden’s stock exchange. Those companies are: Asmodee Group, which comprises Embracer’s tabletop games biz; Coffee Stain & Friends, an evolution of the existing Coffee Stain publisher, who will pursue "a dual focus on indie and A/AA premium and free-to-play games for PC/console and mobile"; and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends, “a creative powerhouse in AAA game development and publishing for PC and console, as well as the stewards of The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider intellectual properties, among many others”.

Saber CEO Matthew Karch has entered a no-holds barred interview with IGN about his company’s experience with Embracer Group. But what he has to say is probably going to surprise you.

Saber Interactive founder Matthew Karch has launched a defence of his former employer Embracer Group and its CEO, Lars Wingefors.

Presumably, the remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic can’t hold up a newspaper with today’s date to prove that it is actually doing okay and hasn’t been quietly disposed of in a tax report somewhere, Warner Bros-style. As such, it falls to the head of current developers Saber Interactive to promise that the long-in-the-works Star Wars game is still “alive and well”.

Despite seemingly escaping the Embrace(r) of death through their sale to Take-Two at the end of last month, Gearbox Entertainment haven’t quite emerged unscathed. The studio has confirmed a number of layoffs shortly after the announcement of the sale, while clarifying that no positions related to the development of games were affected.

Take-Two has announced plans to acquire Gearbox Entertainment from the embattled Embracer Group, in a deal reported to be worth $460 million. The buyout makes logical sense, as Gearbox Entertainment will operate under the framework of 2K Games, which has long been the publisher of the popular Borderlands series. It’ll be led by founder Randy Pitchford.

After failing to close a $2 billion deal with Saudia Arabia’s Savvy Games Group, in June of last year, Embracer Group announced that it would be shuttering studios, cutting jobs, and cancelling games as part of a significant internal restructuring program in order to get its finances back into shape. That restructuring program is now finally over, with Gearbox Entertainment’s sale to Take-Two Interactive for $460 million seemingly being the final major step of that process.

Borderlands 4 may not have been formally unveiled yet, but there’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that a new instalment in the highly successful franchise is indeed in development at Gearbox Entertainment. That, incidentally, has now been confirmed by the studio’s new parent company.

Embracer Group finally confirmed that it is selling Borderlands studio Gearbox Entertainment to Take-Two Interactive, but there’s a catch: Embracer Group will retain ownership of Gearbox Publishing.