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Upcoming games set in Middle-earth and involving one Lara Croft have a new parent company, alongside a wealth of other series. Embracer, the conglomerate that owns several major publishers, including Plaion and THQ Nordic, has announced a wing dedicated to overseeing a selection of the biggest IP, and to foster further growth in others.
The enterprise is called Fellowship Entertainment, and Embracer's founder and chair Lars Wingefors announced the move in an open letter to shareholders. "The main rationale to spin-off Fellowship is to increase management focus to capture the full joint potential of the IPs, their respective communities and some of the best game developers in the world," he writes.
"I think the assets held by Fellowship Entertainment are among the most undervalued in the industry and I feel it’s my duty as the largest shareholder to change this and create a structure to realize their full potential," he continues. "I’m convinced that Fellowship Entertainment could reach industry leading profitability and show healthy long-term organic growth above the industry average."
This is all corpo-speak to say these games and franchises need more particular attention and oversight. Besides The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Dead Island, Darksiders, Remnant, Saints Row, Legacy of Kain, Deus Ex, Red Faction, and TimeSplitters are among the properties listed.
That's an eclectic mix, and while some, like Tomb Raider and Kingdom Come, remain current, others haven't had proper new games in years. Part of Fellowship Entertainment's remit is to actually do something with these latent series. At least two "outstanding AAA products" will come out annually next in the 2027-2028 fiscal year, and there'll be more licensing as well.
Sadly, it's mentioned that Fellowship will utilize the "adaptation of new technologies and AI" as well. What that means in context is another question. "We firmly believe that Fellowship Entertainment on a standalone basis will have more attractive and easy-to-understand investor communication and that it will, over time, attract a larger pool of international investors," Wingefors says.
If this is what finally leads us to a new TimeSplitters, then I'm all in. I just hope it's not a monkey's paw situation.
