THQ Nordic Acquires 'Kingdom Come: Deliverance' Developer

Kingdom Come: Deliverancedeveloper Warhorse Studios is now under the umbrella of THQ Nordic and Koch Media, the companies announced on Wednesday.

THQ Nordic boasts a catalog of games which include the Darksiders and Dead Island series as well as the new Metro Exodus game which comes out soon, and it now also has the studio behind the hyper-realistic Kingdom Come: Deliverance as well. The game originally started out as a crowdfunded project and eventually released as an RPG which tasked players with mastering medieval combat mechanics and survival skills and went on to win Warhorse Studios awards.

Though it's been acquired by THQ Nordic, the Kingdom Come: Deliverance studio will continue to operate independent studio under Koch Media, the announcement explained. Those who played the game might recall that it was published by Deep Silver and Koch Media, so the two organizations already had a relationship in place before the acquisition.

Martin Frývalský, the CEO of Warhorse Studios, commented on the acquisition within the same announcement and called the move "an important milestone" for a studio with small beginnings.

"Becoming part of THQ Nordic family is an important milestone for our studio," Frývalský said. "We began as a small start-up with a handful of employees who were enthusiastic enough to join this challenging project. The skills of our team members, trust and support of our main investor and passion of our fans, who supported development of Kingdom Come: Deliverance through a Kickstarter campaign, helped us grow to an international level. We believe that backing by THQ Nordic will give us an extra push in our mission to bring exciting games to our customers and extend the frontiers of the gaming industry."

The new studio acquisition marks the latest development in a busy year for THQ Nordic as the brand added several other studios to its portfolio in 2018. THQ Nordic acquired Koch Media in February 2018 which meant it also acquired Deep Silver and the publisher's properties. The acquisitions continued with THQ Nordic announcing ownership of more studios towards the end of the year and saying that it had over 50 games in development.

THQ Nordic's full announcement regarding the Warhorse Studios acquisition can be seen here.