THQ Nordic announced today that the acquisition of the Piranha Bytes team and trademark and the intellectual property Gothic has been finalised. Piranha Bytes’ rights to Risen and ELEX were also acquired. The newly formed entity (Piranha Bytes GmbH, Essen, Germany) will host the entire development team and is a 100% subsidiary of THQ Nordic GmbH, based in Vienna, Austria.
As the press release reads, the team will focus and concentrate on the creation of outstanding and unique RPG gaming experiences, having full creative freedom in doing so, whereas THQ Nordic GmbH will act as Piranha Bytes’ publisher, responsible for distribution, marketing and further support.
Björn Pankratz, Project Director and Game Designer of Piranha Bytes, said:
“There are situations in life where you think to yourself “This feels right.” Well, this is exactly one of them. We have been working on some great and exciting things over the past couple of years and we are extremely stoked about what the future brings with the right partner and the right network of companies. After all, we want to continue to create great, memorable, and impactful games with as much creative freedom as possible, and with THQ Nordic we know we are now part of a family, which supports us by all means in our efforts.”
Going into more details, Pluto 13 GmbH (the former company behind the Piranha Bytes brand) sold the trademarks “Piranha Bytes” and “Gothic” as well as the entire Gothic IP to THQ Nordic AB. The remaining rights of Risen and ELEX, which were in other entities of the Piranha Bytes folks, were also acquired by THQ Nordic AB.
THQ Nordic did not comment on potential remakes for Gothic and/or Risen, though it hinted at a sequel to ELEX.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Hopefully this means some backing and budget behind their games. Maybe they can finally fix the jank that makes people overlook these absolute brilliant games.
A sequel to Elex?! Yes, please!!! ?? ?
Man a remaster of Gothic 1 and 2, and maybe even 3, would be amazing.
Risen 4 pls
After risen 3 why anyone wants another one?
Unless they revamp the controls/UI i doubt many will care.
It’s an easy feat, though.
Played Elex, I wanted to like it but could not, the controls are so clunky and unresponsive.
I really enjoyed it, was a nice surprise.
Elex is one of the best eurojank games ever.
thats your problem? Mine is that like all gothic games they require you to do the main missions to improve your character, trying to explore the open world and do sidequests will get you killed, bu in elex the entire campaign is “go to the edges of the giant worldmap where the various faction towns are and ask them stuff”
So the campaign makes you run from one point of the map to the other one while running away from high leveled monsters. MEH.
More Epic exclusives. No thanks.
Just give me Gothic 1 Remake but on modern engine.
Gothic 1 is the best one
Spellbound tried to give them Arcania but failed. They’re not touching that one with a 40ft pole, not even just to poke at its dead carcass for fun.
“having full creative freedom in doing so,”
Great now make elex 2 because there arent many non fantasy rpgs out there.
F*K NO!
NO!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
for anyone wondering, THQ Nordic is owned by Swedecucks
aka abandon all hope and dreams, because ELEX 2 is going to be full of N*ggers, Feminism,
F A G G O T R Y and soy, lots of soy…
looks like only Mount and Blade Bannerlord remains unpozzed
if it were ever to be released…
well they did say full creative freedom, we will see.