Embracer founder and executive chair Lars Wingefors, the main architect behind the company's infamous $2b disaster from 2023 that resulted in thousands of lost jobs, canceled games, and shuttered studios, says the restructuring has been about giving a select number of developers and IP the chance to "prove themselves."

It's irresponsible and unfair to pin the industry's ongoing layoff crisis on any one company, but Wingefors is right to point out in a recent open letter to shareholders that "we have become closely associated with industry layoffs." According to a report published by marketing firm Udonis, Embracer laid off 7,800 employees, canceled more than 80 games, and shut down dozens of studios in the two-year period between 2023 and 2025 following the collapse of its deal with the reportedly Saudi-backed Savvy Games. Some Embracer-owned entities, like Deus Ex studio Eidos Montreal, are still being impacted by that fallout as recently as March 2026.

Regardless, Embracer's wait-and-see approach to downsizing is an intentional alternative to the usual one-and-done mass layoffs all of the other big companies have been doing, says Wingefors.

"Looking back at the large adjustment we made in 2023, we decided not to do a hard 'US Corporate style' headcount reduction, but to give a number of studios and IPs the chance to prove themselves," he tells shareholders. "We have been and are still adjusting to a new industry post-pandemic to drive value. We are now finally past the largest cycle of productions started prior to or during the pandemic."

I don't have to point out, but will anyway, that the games industry has been in a period of unprecedented restructuring since just after the Covid boom in 2020, and it's hard to think of a major game developer or publisher that hasn't been in the news for related reasons multiple times in recent years. That said, Embracer's $2b debacle and its ensuing fallout stand out as some of the grimmest examples of the turmoil that will one day define this period of the video game industry.

On the bright side, as Wingefors says, "we are seeing great business for PC/Console games based on proven IPs or licenses, especially large, great single-player experiences," adding that Embracer's data shows big interest in "high-quality games" like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which "has already reached a ROI of 3.2x just 14 months post-release, with great continued momentum for the future."

Speaking of, Lord of the Rings, Tomb Raider, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and more now overseen by new company from Embracer that'll make at least 2 "outstanding AAA products" a year

Crystal Dynamics is assuring fans that development of the upcoming Tomb Raider titles is still going fine despite the studio announcing its fourth batch of layoffs in under a year.

Around a year ago, Crystal Dynamics confirmed it was letting go of 17 employees while continuing work on Perfect Dark and the then-unnamed Tomb Raider title. Microsoft then cancelled the Perfect Dark reboot as part of its sweeping layoffs back in July, which in turn saw Crystal Dynamics announce another round of layoffs in August, followed by a third round in November, while the studio was weeks away from announcing Tomb Raider: Catalyst and the Flying Wild Hog co-developed remake, Legacy of Atlantis.

Unfortunately, the excitement around the new releases doesn't seem to have significantly improved the studio's fortunes, as Crystal Dynamics announced this week (via a LinkedIn post) that it will be laying off 20 more team members, marking a fourth round of layoffs in under a year.

"This is a difficult day for our studio, and we never make these decisions lightly, particularly after the restructuring we underwent last year," the post reads, adding, "As our current projects move into new phases of development, we continuously take a hard look at our team structures to ensure they align with our long-term studio goals. While we always strive to transition our people into new roles whenever possible, we have unfortunately reached a point where these departures are necessary."

As for Tomb Raider, the studio noted, "We know that news like this can cause concern amongst our community. Crystal Dynamics remains fully committed to the future development of our already announced Tomb Raider titles." Adding, "however, our priority is supporting our colleagues who are moving on."

It's early summer in Rochester, New York. The weather is perfect, even though the lavender hasn't yet bloomed – but I'm in an elevator going down to a basement, frozen like an excited rabbit because I'm about to see the archives at the Strong National Museum of Play.

Established in 1969, The Strong is a palace from a child's notebook – a mess of organic shapes bleeding together in rainbows to form a comfortable home to the World Video Game Hall of Fame, as well as other impressive artifacts like the recently acquired Volition collection, which is what I'm here to see. Once I do, I'm convinced video game preservation – in this dark age of extensive industry layoffs, censorship, and dead games – is one of the only things keeping us from ruin, despite what some skeptics say.

The elevator thuds to the ground, revealing tantalizing – but off-limits – lumps of metal and monitors hidden under blankets like bodies. Director of digital preservation Andrew Borman leads me past them and into the basement, where a seemingly infinite number of shelves, drawers, and boxes protect the past.

Let's rewind

Borman's affection for preservation started with Resident Evil 2. He remembers, nearly 30 years ago, carrying around the same magazine "for many months" just to marvel at its Resident Evil 2 images.

"There was this classic screenshot of zombies with their arms coming out of the jail cell," Borman tells me. But then something strange happened – those scenes weren't in the eventual Resident Evil 2 demo, nor were they in the final game, which Borman played from start to finish.

"It turns out, with Resident Evil 2, they essentially scrapped the game," he says. "So that, for me, was the start of it all." He realized video games come with secret histories – they're rarely ever just born how they are, like people – and it led him to documenting unreleased builds of hardware and games like Silent Hill Origins on YouTube and later, for the past eight years, at The Strong Museum, where he started assisting with digital games curation. Now, Borman now helps lead that curatorial effort.

"I always say that my favorite collection is the one that I'm working on right now," says Borman.

Though, there was that one time a cataloguer set aside a pitch letter that seemed interesting from an otherwise innocuous museum haul.

"And along with that," Borman recalls, "was a floppy disk. And on that floppy disk were things like Commander Keen, and some other software games, and then it also said Mario 3. And it took me about 20 feet between me going from the office into the elevator to realize what it was – a prototype that Ideas from the Deep, which would become id Software, pitched to Nintendo to make a Super Mario Bros. 3 port for DOS Computers."

"As far as I knew, the only other copy that exists [belongs to] John Romero, who was one of the creators of it," says Borman.

My own Volition

I don't often get to play around in a time machine, so I eagerly snap photos of N64's Animal Crossing looking fresh in its lemon yellow box, crates of Famicom titles I can't read, a 1976 handheld game watch containing something called Hello Kitty Seaside Holiday. Hello Kitty is there to the left of its oxidizing screen, holding out a poppy as if to thank me for being impressed.

Then, there's the stuff from Volition.

"I think the time that it covers is really important," Borman says, observing that, from 1993's Descent beta to Saints Row in 2022, Volition's games span 30 years of change. This is a fact the studio apparently appreciates, too, even after parent company Embracer abruptly closed it in 2023; Volition developers chose to reach out to The Strong to donate their archives "rather than just throwing them out."

"A few months later, that material arrived, and we've been slowly processing it ever since," says Borman.

Some of it – like a pair of faux snakeskin sneakers for 2011's Saints Row: The Third – is scattered across tables or sitting on the floor, as is the case for a lifesize replica of the Dubstep Gun from Saints Row 4. More waits for me behind nondescript shelving marked with a Post-it: "Volition Collection."

Borman shows me some things I've never seen before: a playable version of the scrapped Batman stealth game Volition made for PS2, scraps of a particularly cursed Harry Potter game, and early Saints Row 2 builds.

After The Strong made its collection public, Borman was heartened by the response. The museum received love letters from both fans of Volition reminiscing about the games they played growing up, or that their fathers used to play, as well as from the defunct studio's former employees.

"To see how thankful they are that it's not all gone – that's why we do it," he says.

Trouble in paradise

Once Borman is done sorting through the remaining few "thousands of discs, countless pieces of paper that I haven't even looked at yet" from the Volition haul, he says, The Strong will determine how to best make them available to the public. Disappointingly, copyright prevents these materials from being disseminated online, "so there are limits to what we can make remotely accessible," Borman explains. "But, once it's processed, we could start to think, 'Oh, do we want to do an exhibit about Volition? Do we want to incorporate parts of that history in any of the number of other exhibits we're doing?'"

"I think the possibilities are endless," he says.

This is the part where people get angry. From Stop Killing Games to haughty lobbyists terrified of anything they deem immoral, everyone has their own ideas about what a game's life should look like, and how long it should be. We're all overbearing cops in that way. With the Volition archives in particular, Saints Row fans have casually announced plans to "steal them from the museum," complaining that, otherwise, it'll all "rot on some guy's hard drives."

Before my visit to The Strong, I'd scrolled through replies to its Volition news and was surprised by their vitriol – people target both The Strong and Borman himself, who shrugs off my questions and suggests he's used to it. He even understands it.

"For a lot of time, piracy has been the only way that people have been preserving games," says Borman, though he doesn't necessarily see piracy as preservation, "because that wasn't their goal."

"I think what people need to realize is, if we only go by things that could be pirated, only a small portion of video game history is ever going to be preserved," he continues. Hacking servers or leaking press builds is the gentle surface of a deep, wild ocean – the rest of video game history is hidden in old storage bins and emails, aging pieces of scrap paper that even the person who scribbled on it can't remember.

Borman says preservation leaves no space for competition. We can only secure the next 100 years of video games with cooperation, with love from "us plus them, plus everybody else that's still to come."

This may be the only Super Mario Bros review that landed with the NES launch, and the magazine that called it a "special hall of fame" classic in 1986 is helping set a new standard for game preservation.

In the time since Deus Ex was put out to pasture by Square Enix following the release of Mankind Divided, things haven't gotten much more hopeful. The IP – along with developer Eidos Montreal – was sold to Embracer Group, which was then followed by rumours of a new entry being developed. Then, a bit later, we got confirmation that it was real, unfortunately paired with the news that the game had been cancelled.

Cyberpunk 2077 did show up in the meantime, and has lessened the blow of Deus Ex being gone for good for some people, but for others it's not enough, and they're taking to other means. However, in response to someone suggesting to play Cyberpunk 2077 with an AI-generated Adam Jensen voice instead of V's original voice actor, Gavin Drea, Adam Jensen's voice actor Elias Toufexis (who was most recently in Starfield and set to appear in the now-cancelled Perfect Dark reboot) gave a succinct response: "No. Do not fucking do that."

Of course, the GenAI mod is built from Toufexis' performance as Jensen, with the actor having called this type of thing "theft" in the past. But even when you ignore the ramifications of taking an actor's performance and using it for this, it's just pretty lame, isn't it?

It's one thing to have some bad-sounding Peter Griffin voice model talk about some historical event for a dumb TikTok, or getting Plankton from SpongeBob to sing Chappell Roan (with both sucking, too), but playing an entire game with an AI voice model replacing the original actor's own lines is another. V, as a character, is also nothing like Adam Jensen – his voice hardly fits the character.

Deus Ex Adam Jensen actor responds to potential story plans for the cyberpunk RPG's canceled sequel: "Hey this would have been fun huh?"

After years of uncertainty, Saber Interactive's Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic remake is "alive and well," according to the company's CEO.

In an interview with IGN, Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch gives the briefest update on the mysterious title. After confirming that the studio kept hold of Knights of the Old Republic, even after parent company Embracer Group sold Saber in a $500 million deal earlier this year, Karch says the game is still in active development.

"It's clear and it's obvious that we're working on this. It's been in the press numerous times," Karch tells the outlet. "What I will say is that the game is alive and well, and we're dedicated to making sure we exceed consumer expectations." This is one of the first official words we've had on the title so far since its reveal in 2021. 

Shortly before this, back in December 2023, the boss of Disney gaming gave new hope for the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake by revealing that there's "not a lot I can say on that point for some hopefully obvious reasons" - hinting at the fact the game is still being worked on. Just before this, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier also gave insight into the situation, sharing that the game was still in the works after multiple sources claimed the project had been canceled. 

There's still a lot to learn about the KOTOR remake, and it's hard to predict exactly when we'll hear more about it. The only thing we have to go off of is the teaser trailer we got almost four years ago - which has since been removed from PlayStation and other official YouTube channels due to an expired music license. At least we now know that Knights of the Old Republic is on the way soon.

Find out what else we've got to look forward to with our upcoming Star Wars games list. 

The owner of the rights to The Lord of the Rings says it plans to "exploit" the franchise in an attempt to turn it into a major force in gaming.

Speaking during an investor call, Embracer Group board member Matthew Karch said that "we own Lord of the Rings, and we know we need to be exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very different fashion and turning that into one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world."

The world "exploit" there is bad enough, but Karch's comments come off the back of a significant restructuring at Embracer, which has become one of the biggest game publishers in the world thanks to a slew of notable acquisitions in recent years. In an open letter, company CEO Lars Wingefors announced redundancies, cancellations, and studio closures - many of which appear to be directly in the service of bigger titles.

The team behind the new Tomb Raider game has already announced its immunity to the restructure. Karch himself says that future Lord of the Rings games are "a much better use of resources than some of the other projects that some of our teams have been working on." Those games, for the most part, have reportedly not been announced.

Earlier this year, Embracer announced that five Lord of the Rings games were in development. One of those was the disastrous Gollum, another is upcoming survival game Return to Moria, and a there's also an EA mobile RPG, a game from Weta Workshop, and the recently-announced Lord of the Rings MMO from the New World studio. That's a lot of Middle-earth, but Embracer's comments suggest we're set to see a lot more. That's all well and good, but the suggestion that it's coming at the direct expense of other games is a worrying one, especially when games like Gollum are yet to make Embracer's stewardship of the brand look like a shining example of how the franchise might look in the future.

Get a look ahead with our list of new games 2023.

Publisher Embracer Group has announced a restructuring effort that will see staff laid off and games cancelled, but the new Tomb Raider game is entirely unaffected. 

Earlier today on June 13, Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors penned an open letter announcing redundancies and project cancellations at Embracer-owned studios. "During the past years, Embracer invested significantly both in acquisitions and into a strategy of accelerated organic growth," Wingefors wrote.

"We have acquired some of the world’s leading entertainment IP and we have invested into one of the largest pipelines of games across the industry," Wingefors outlined of Embracer's mass acquisitions over the past year or so, including The Lord of the Rings license.

"The program presented today will transform us from our current heavy-investment-mode to a highly cash-flow generative business this year," Wingefors wrote, adding "Embracer currently engages close to 17,000 people and while that number will be lower by the end of the year, it is too early to give an exact forecast on this."

Embracer will also close studios where needed, and outright cancel projects in development, although Wingefors noted that the games affected will almost certainly be unannounced projects. "We will reduce third party publishing and put greater focus on internal IP and increase external funding of large-budget games," Wingefors continued.

Shortly after the letter by Wingefors was published, Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics moved to reassure fans on Twitter with the message below. It appears the studio has been entirely unaffected by the layoffs and cancellations from their parent company, with their development efforts on Perfect Dark and the new Tomb Raider game continuing.

As for the future of Embracer Group, Wingefors concluded that the company is still set to have a "solid year with many amazing releases" to come. These include Remnant 2, Alone in the Dark, Payday 3, Homeworld 3, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, and a litany of other less high-profile releases.

You can head over to our new games 2023 guide for a look ahead at all the other game releases coming over the rest of the year.

A Lord of the Rings MMO has been announced as being in development at Amazon.

Earlier today on May 15, Amazon and Embracer Group announced an agreement to developer a Lord of the Rings MMO. The new game will be developed internally by Amazon Games, and will also be published on PCs and consoles alike by Amazon, meaning Embracer is basically licensing the game over to Amazon in its entirety.

And yes, you read that right: The new Lord of the Rings MMO will be coming to both PCs and console platforms alike. We don't yet have a release window announcement for the new MMO, but at least console players won't have to worry about left out in the cold on this one.

Since this is in development at Amazon Games, it means there's some history here with MMOs. The studio previously put out New World, an MMO which launched to a pretty solid reception and player base, so there's a track record for Amazon Games making good MMOs, at least.

You might remember Embracer Group first acquired the rights to both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings last year in August 2022. Fans were nervous at the time, weary of a giant conglomerate company holding the rights to a beloved series and franchise at large, arguing it was completely antithetical to the spirit of the original novels.

It's hard from the announcement to gauge how far along the Lord of the Rings MMO is in development. Considering Embracer acquired the rights under a year ago though, it's really likely the MMO is still pretty early along in development, and we shouldn't expect to play it for at least a few years yet.

This is the first new Lord of the Rings-related game to be announced since Embracer first acquired the rights last year. We've got The Lord of the Rings: Gollum finally emerging from the shadows for a console and PC release later this month on May 25 in the meantime, though.

Check out our new games 2023 guide for a look at what else is on the near horizon for launch this year.

It looks like the Saints Row reboot ended up costing its parent company over $100 million, according to one source. 

A fan account dedicated to covering Deep Silver Volition's parent company Embracer Group has been going through the Swedish entertainment conglomerate's latest financial report. The factoid around Saints Row was flagged by the user alongside what was officially presented, which is that the company's PC and console segment is still feeling the sting of under-performing releases from earlier in the financial year.

Aside from saying the cost is a "well-known fact behind the scenes", they also point to publicly available financial data that shows the "value of completed games in the July-September quarter" being SEK 1671 million (roughly $ 160 million). The Saints Row reboot was one of few notable releases for the period, so the user believes "it's not that bold a statement".

As we previously reported, Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors acknowledged the poor reception to the Saints Row reboot following a rocky launch. At the time, he hoped ongoing bug fixes and content updates would turn the game's financial future into a rosier one. 

"I think I stated before the release that we were confident in the financial profile of the investment," Wingefors said in a Q&A session at Embracer Group's annual general meeting. "Obviously, personally I had hoped for a greater reception of the game. It's been a very polarized view. There are a lot of things that could be said in detail around it. But on one hand I'm happy to see a lot of gamers and fans happy. At the same time, I'm a bit sad to see lots of fans not happy. It's difficult."

"I think we need to wait for the quarterly report in November to have more details around this. We are still fairly early in our release window, and still collecting data. There's a lot of bug fixing, and there is more content coming."

In our Saints Row review, we call the game "a new era that's still somewhat stuck in the past".

Back in May, Square Enix sold Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal to the Embracer Group in a deal said to be worth $300 million. In doing so, Square Enix gave up around 50 games across its back catalog, including the rights to everything from Tomb Raider to Thief, Deus-Ex, and Legacy of Kain. The implications of that deal were, and still are, huge. And while all I really want is a Soul Reaver remaster in the middle of things, I'm far from alone – GamesRadar+ Senior Guides Coordinator Leon Hurley makes a strong case here for why a Soul Reaver Remake is the perfect way to bring the series back on PS5.  

This might be wishful thinking on our parts, granted, but it seems Embracer Group and Crystal Dynamics may now be thinking similar things. The results of the latter's interest-gauging questionnaire are in (issued last month to players interested in seeing the return of the Legacy of Kain series), having returned over 100,000 responses. "73,000 gamers completed it entirely," said Crystal Dynamics CEO Phil Rogers during an Embracer earnings call. "And if you are one of them, we thank you very much and we appreciate it was quite an effort given the survey was pretty extensive… Rest assured, we hear you loudly and clearly, and we'll continue to update you on the 'what if' possibilities ahead for Legacy of Kain in the future."

Which is pretty exciting. So exciting, in fact, that the Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver community can't believe it. "The cut content from the first Soul Reaver game alone is the stuff of legend," explains long-serving player and Soul Reaver remaster campaigner Federico Barreri, also known online as Wrongnu. "I don't exaggerate when I say many of us would have a heart attack if such a thing were made playable. This is so exciting."

Legacy matters

How Crystal Dynamics chooses to revitalize the Legacy of Kain series, assuming it even will, remains to be seen. But of all the Legacy of Kain games, surely Soul Reaver is the most intriguing? Set 1,500 years after Blood Omen, it has alternate dimensions, exploding vampires, sacrosanct clans and gods, and a son seeking vengeance on his father, all wrapped up in a solid action brawler-meets-RPG with Metroidvania elements before the term was as commonplace as it is today. In this age of video game remakes, where so many classics are being treated to a fresh lick of paint and mechanical overhauls, Soul Reaver ticks all of the boxes. Right?  

Barreri certainly thinks so. He says: "The sense of desolation, loneliness, and free exploration – Soul Reaver does what many games fail to do even today. It lets you make that world yours, it makes you learn the pattern of the enemies, and understand where all the interconnected areas lead. It's not without its flaws, but the idea of playing as the 'son' of the previous game's protagonist, hellbent on murdering his creator? That's a pretty bold narrative choice – it blew my mind back then, and it still does when I think about it now."

"The Resident Evil remakes really started a new era for games remakes too. Soul Reaver is a peculiar creature because while imperfect, anyone I've spoken to who's played it will tell you the pros far outweigh the cons. That said, there is a lot of room for improvement. For me, many things should be reimagined entirely, as I don't think a frame-by-frame remake – similar to, say, Bluepoint's Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls – would work. I think reimagining a significant amount of features from scratch would help bring the essence of the original game in line with modern standards – including combat, puzzles (don't get me started on those stupid blocks), and, of course, graphics. Before Kratos, Raziel was one of PlayStation's main champions. He's a badass, both in design and backstory."

Barreri says the Legacy of Kain community is now abuzz with speculation and excitable guesswork as to where the overarching series might land next. Barreri himself says he'd more than welcome a Soul Reaver remake, incorporating the modern nips and tucks outlined above, while also using EA and Capcom's Dead Space and Resident Evil remakes as points of reference. The game's controls, physics, puzzles, combat, cutscenes, and dub, all should be reworked, reckons Barreri, while maintaining the tone and legacy of the original game. But his true desire would be to see the original 1999 action-adventure game remastered, with prettier visuals and a distinguished twist to satisfy long-standing fans. 

He adds: "I've campaigned on social media for years to see a Soul Reaver remaster (not a remake, not yet at least). With time, I came up with the idea that the best possible solution – and this is something I pointed out in the survey – would be to have the game in its original, unadulterated form, with improved graphics and a twist: after clearing the game once – in pure Yoko Taro/NieR-style – you could replay the game by unlocking an extended version of the game, containing all the never-before-seen cut content restored. That'd include The Undercity, the final brother Turel, the third Kain fight with Ariel's sacrifice to empower the Reaver, and the final onslaught of vampires at the Silenced Cathedral. And, of course, the completely different, alternate ending."

"If you were to check my social media activity, that's pretty much my gaming dream. I'd love a complete Soul Reaver remake,  but a remastered 'Director's Cut' is definitely my own first priority. And I can assure you many others within the community would love to see such a thing. Basically, I think that a series, before moving on with new products, should complete everything that was left unfinished. And, as I said, as good as it is, there's still so much of Soul Reaver that remains unfinished."

Crystal clear

Again, whether or not Crystal Dynamics chooses to "finish" Soul Reaver one way or another remains to be seen – but what is definitely clear at this stage is how celebrated Raziel's adventures still are today. In the process of announcing the conclusion of the questionnaire, Crystal Dynamics CEO Phil Rogers said that, in his experience, a census of this nature would normally return two to three thousand replies. To receive more than 33 times that number tells you everything you need to know about this fanbase. 

Speaking directly to that passion, Barreri says: "I'm biased, but, oh man, you have no idea how passionate this group is. I've seen many fandoms, but the special thing about this one is it's made up of smart, understanding and mature people, all around the world. We might be separated by all kinds of barriers, from language to timezones, but there are many, many Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver fans out there, and today I think we're more united than ever. It's an extremely dedicated but also chill fandom, all working towards the same cause: to see the return of Soul Reaver – be that a remaster or a fully-fledged remake. Today, something that once seemed so unlikely seems more possible now than ever."

If you'd like to follow Soul Reaver remaster campaigner Federico Barreri, aka Wrongnu, you can do so via his Twitter page, or via the hashtags #RestoreSoulReaverCutContent and #SoulReaverUncutRemaster2022.   

The best action games are sure to keep you on your toes 

Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors has acknowledged that he's disappointed with the reception to the Saints Row reboot, though he hopes that ongoing bug fixes and upcoming content updates will help to push the game to a successful financial future.

"I think I stated before the release that we were confident in the financial profile of the investment," Wingefors said in a Q&A session at Embracer Group's annual general meeting. "Obviously, personally I had hoped for a greater reception of the game. It's been a very polarized view. There is a lot of things that could be said in detail around it. But on one hand I'm happy to see a lot of gamers and fans happy. At the same time, I'm a bit sad to see lots of fans not happy. It's difficult.

"I think we need to wait for the quarterly report in November to have more details around this. We are still fairly early in our release window, and still collecting data. There's a lot of bug fixing, and there is more content coming."

When talking about the business perspective of releasing Saints Row, Wingefors had a bit of an awkward pause. "On the financial side, I know… or I'm confident we will make money on the investment. Will it have as great return of investment that we have seen in many other games? Not very likely. But we will make money, and that's a very good starting point, at least."

Fans have been worried that the buggy launch of the new Saints Row would spell the end of the franchise, but when asked about what the reception of the new Saints Row means for the future of the series, Wingefors did not have a concrete response.

"You know, obviously, you always want every installment of any IP to be greater than the last one. This is quite a process, to evaluate your position, the outcome. There is hundreds of people engaged in this game within the group. So I still have great trust in those people, and I'm sure they will recommend things for the future."

If you're looking for something else to scratch your open-world crime itch, check out our favorite games like GTA.

The rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have been acquired by tech conglomerate Embracer Group as part of a number of new deals, but the purchase has been met with a sense of wary distrust from fans.

In a press release early this morning, Embracer said that it had "entered into an agreement to acquire Middle-earth Enterprises," granting it potential access to "a vast intellectual property catalogue and worldwide rights to motion pictures, video games, board games," and much more. 

The price of the deal has not been confirmed, but some terms have been outlined. Middle-earth Enterprises "will continue to operate independently under the exisiting [...] leadership team," but it's clear that Embracer is hoping to expand the franchise - specifically, it mentions "opportunities includ[ing] exploring additional movies based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkein."

While that sounds as though it might be exciting news for fans of Middle-earth, the announcement has been met with a wave of uncertainty on social media.  Journalist Rebekah Valentine tweeted to comment on how "a giant holding company literally owning the rights to Tolkein's books is just like so profoundly antithetical to their spirit." Elsewhere, Game Developer's Bryant Francis discussed their concerns about the sheer number of franchises Embracer now owns alongside Lord of the Rings.

Over on the Lord of the Rings subreddit, a similar sentiment arose. User munki17 suggested that the focus on individual characters could lead to an "incoming Gandalf movie, Aragorn movie, Legolas and Gimli movie," adding "I hope I'm wrong." Another user was even less confident, saying "You think Amazon was bad? Prepare for made-up spin-off movies and series. LorR is the new cow for money like [Star Wars]. They will milk it dry until nobody cares about the franchise anymore."

Even if not everyone seems to share that more pessimistic outlook, right now there's little enthusiasm for a potential glut of new games and films appearing on social media. Embracer does seem to suggest it'll continue the somewhat hands-off approach it's brought to other acquisitions in recent years, but it's unlikely that any company would look to acquire one of the world's biggest franchises and not look to capitalise on that purchase as soon as possible.

Along with Middle-earth Enterprises, Embracer also announced today that it had purchased a number of other companies. They include physical games producer Limited Run Games, Killing Floor developer Tripwire Studios and Teardown's Tuxedo Labs, and gaming and music effects company Singtrix.

Just this week, a new Lord of the Rings game was announced from the team that helped bring Middle-earth to life.

Earlier this week, Square Enix sold Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal to the Embracer Group in a deal said to be worth $300 million. In one fell swoop, the former outfit relinquished somewhere in the vicinity of 50 games across its portfolio, including the rights to some of its biggest hitters in Tomb Raider, Deus-Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain. 

In the grand scheme of video game company buyouts, this one is a big one, with some pretty significant implications going forward. I'm no financial expert, but $300 million to acquire all of that seems like a decent bit of business for the Embracer Group, especially given the fact it now has its hands on the recently revealed in-development Tomb Raider game being made in Unreal Engine 5. On that, Crystal Dynamics has promised to "push the envelope of fidelity" and to give us the "high-quality, cinematic action-adventure experience that fans deserve from both Crystal Dynamics, and the Tomb Raider franchise." Which is exciting. Now, replace 'Tomb Raider' in that last sentence with 'Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver', and tell me butterflies aren't flooding your stomach. You can't? I don't blame you.

World shifting

For the uninitiated, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver was released in the summer of 1999 on the PSOne (the following January on Dreamcast) to become the second entry in the dark fantasy vampire series. Preceded by 2D hack-and-slash, action-adventure game Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Soul Reaver was a sequel in pretty much every way imaginable – extending its forerunner's narrative timeline, and, crucially, transitioning to 3D and introducing a wealth of new, refined, and ahead-of-its-time game mechanics, not least the ability to shift realms. Video games have given us many jaw-dropping, mind-boggling eureka moments over the last 23 years since – BioShock's 'Would You Kindly', Braid's perspective-juggling, Breath of the Wild's first steps into Hyrule, The Last of Us 2's early violent exchange, to name but a few – but the very first time I moved planes in Soul Reaver is still among my favorite video game moments. 

At just 13 years old, discovering my actions in one dimension impacted those in another totally blew my mind. I'd then spend hours untangling the puzzles that required me to flit between worlds, in something that was, in essence, a broader, more sophisticated slant on Zelda: A Link to the Past. We've seen flashes of this in other games between times, granted – as a horror fan, Silent Hill's Otherworld springs to mind – but for me, the only games that have since balanced intelligence and intuitiveness on this level are 2007's Portal and its 2011 sequel. And while there are now six games in the wider Legacy of Kain series, Soul Reaver is the one that fans remember the most. 

Our own Leon Hurley made the case for a Soul Reaver remake earlier this year, billing it as the perfect way to bring the series back on PS5. I'd struggle to argue with that, and agree that tapping into the game's abiding nostalgia would be key in reimagining protagonist Raziel's adventure today with flashy visuals and modern controls. I appreciate that some Legacy of Kain fans would prefer something in the way of a conclusion to the series, but the fact that the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes preceded Resident Evil Village, for example, proves success can be struck in reinventing the old while also progressing the new. A quick glance at Reddit shows players are still finding ways to play Soul Reaver today, and are keenly crafting Raziel-shaped profiles in popular modern games, such as Elden Ring. 

Fresh hope 

So what of the Embracer Group itself? According to a press release issued shortly after the deal's announcement, a spokesperson said the company plans to focus primarily on Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, but did specifically name-check the Legacy of Kain and Thief series as other areas of interest moving forward. Assuming the deal goes through as planned (it's expected to officially close between July and September), Embracer Group will welcome 1,100 new employees, upping its total workforce to 14,000, 10,000 of which are said to be "engaged game developers", across 124 internal studios. Again, business is far from my forte, but to put this $300 million, multi-studio deal into perspective, Embracer Group purchased Borderlands developer Gearbox alone in February 2021 for $1.3 billion. 

Having also acquired Dark Horse Comics in December last year, the Embracer Group is clearly focused on growing its portfolio, but, naturally, how this impacts actual development studios and what they choose to work on is a different consideration entirely. In a post-announcement Q&A, Embracer Group CEO and co-founder Lars Wingefors was asked specifically about the future of Crystal Dynamics' Guardians of the Galaxy games, to which he said: "All games that have been developed by the studios are included in the transaction. However, a number of external approvals are needed from external parties in order to close this transaction… we need to wait until closing, unfortunately, to get more color around IPs and the studios." 

All of which means we shouldn't hold our breath for news on, well, anything until this deal closes. And even then, your guess is as good as mine regarding how the Embracer Group might influence its newly acquired studios, far less which unannounced projects they might pursue next. For me, though, a Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver remake is a no-brainer. You know it makes sense. Recapturing that magic. Reimagining what worked. Tapping into that nostalgia. Bringing Amy Hennig back. I mean, if Cory Barlog can return for God of War, then why the hell not?  

How many of the best action games also feature vampires? 

Borderlands developer Gearbox is working on a new franchise with 2K games which will be introduced this fiscal year.

This information comes from Take-Two Interactive’s quarterly earnings report which was released yesterday. Take-Two didn’t give any other details on this title, other than to describe it as one of their “core releases”. This is something of a surprise given that Gearbox is now owned by a rival publisher, Embracer group.

Embracer purchased Gearbox for $1.3 billion back in February 2021, bringing the veteran developer into the fold alongside its array of studios and publishers including THQ Nordic and Koch Media/Deep Silver. 

At the time, 2K Games released a statement clarifying that “The merger does not change 2K’s relationship with Gearbox nor our role as the publisher for the Borderlands IP or any other projects we are currently working on with the studio.”

The statement does mention other projects so it seems likely that this title was already far into development when the purchase was finalized. Whatever this game is, it will almost certainly be the last new IP that Gearbox works on with 2K Games, as we’d imagine Embracer is keen to start earning back some of that $1.3 billion.

It’s going to be a busy year for Take-Two, which is the parent company of both 2K Games and GTA developer Rockstar games. It was announced during the earnings report that it has 21 games planned for release during the fiscal year 2022. That includes four “immersive core releases”, of which two will be new franchises. One of these is the new Gearbox franchise and the other is as yet unknown.

Alongside this, Gearbox is also planning to release one new independent title through its Private Division indie publishing arm, which will be OlliOlli World. Take-Two also has ten free-to-play mobile games on the way, with six from new franchises and four from existing Take-Two IP. There are also six “new iterations” of previous releases coming, including the recently announced PS5 and Xbox Series X version of GTA V.

E3 2021 is just around the corner and that seems the likely place for Gearbox and 2K to unveil this latest collaboration, so stick check out our E3 2021 schedule to keep up to date on all the big announcements.