In a surprise announcement, Koch Media and THQ Nordic have revealed that they have traded ownership of several IPs including Risen, Sacred, Red Faction, and Painkiller among many others.
In a surprise announcement in an official press release, THQ Nordic and Koch Media have revealed that they have traded several IPs between one another. The companies revealed among the trades come the franchises Risen, Sacred, Red Faction, Painkiller among several others to one another.
To help bolster their portfolios, Koch Media revealed they have traded Risen, Sacred, Second Sight, Singles: Flirt Up Your Life and Rush for Berlin to THQ Nordic. In recent days, THQ Nordic has already seen staggering success with the Darksiders series that has taken the world by storm since the re-release of the games on current-gen platforms as well as newly released additions Darksiders Genesis and Dark Siders III.
says Reinhard Pollice Business and Product Development Director at THQ Nordic. Reinhard Pollice, Business and Product Development Director at THQ has revealed more a hopeful statement about the IP trades, “the warmest of welcomes to Risen, (now THQ Nordic unifies all Piranha Bytes titles under one roof), Sacred (some of us invested more time than they would like to admit), Rush for Berlin, Second Sight and Singles: Flirt Up your Life. Evaluations on remasters, ports, potential sequels & new content, etc. will start right away. We have something in mind already.”
As part of their trade, THQ Nordic has released Red Faction and Painkiller to Koch Media, stating, ““Farewell, Painkiller! Hell & Damnation was just an all-around awesome project to work on. It is hard to believe that it was already 8 years ago for Daniel Garner and actually marked our (then: Nordic Games) first big title. What we had was truly special and although we made a lot of mistakes, we also did a lot of really awesome stuff when we published you. Unfortunately, though, today marks the day where we will let you go. We know you will get a lot of love in your new home.
Farewell, Red Faction! We loved working on Re-Mars-tered (yes, we do have a certain reputation for corny names for remasters, and we are damn proud of it), but the time has come to put our sledgehammers on the shelf. Live long and prosper!”
While the two IPs do seem like a major blow to THQ Nordic, the company revealed that they already have several new ones in the works including Desperados III, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rhydrated, Destroy All Humans!, Biomutant, and recently released DLC for Titan Quest and Remnant: From the Ashes.
They aren’t the only ones ready to release some brand-new games, however, as Deep Silver and Ravenscourt are about to release brand-new titles on the behalf of Koch Media such as Wasteland 3, Iron Harvest, Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Ash of Gods: Redemption. Ravenscourt has also worked on titles including Cooking Mama: Cookstar (1, 2, 3).
The trades do seem worthwhile and do seem to be preparing the IPs for some heavy-hitting releases in the upcoming days. Stay tuned as we’ll keep you up-to-date as more information is released over time.
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Dustin is our native video game reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the borders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. You can find him over on Twitter or Facebook where he interacts with his followers quite a bit!