Sure Affinity, the co-development studio behind Hogwarts Legacy, a shelved Halo Infinite battle royal sport, and an early rendition of the Good Darkish reboot, has been acquired by Key phrases Studios.
In a press launch printed to its web site, Key phrases introduced it will be buying Sure Affinity for an undisclosed sum. This brings Key phrases a workers of 180 people throughout the U.S. and Canada engaged on “a variety of introduced and unannounced initiatives,” together with Exodus from Archetype Entertaiment, Final Expedition with Gala Video games, and an unique FPS codenamed Mission: Loro. Per the press launch, Sure Affinity will proceed to be led by present administration, together with CEO Max Hoberman and president and COO Paul Sams.
Sure Affinity is best-known for its co-development work going again to the studio’s founding in 2006 by former Halo builders. Since then, it is continued to work as a supporting studio on the Halo sequence, in addition to Name of Responsibility, Left 4 Lifeless, Doom (2016), and others. Mission: Loro is its first wholly-owned new venture.
Again in April, Sure Affinity laid off 25 workers, 10% of its workforce, citing industry-wide slowdowns in funding and investing in new lead and co-development initiatives as a key motive.
That is Key phrases Studios’ second acquisition in 2024, having picked up Wushu Studios again in August. The corporate itself has been quietly amassing an enormous portfolio of studios and corporations below its label ever since 2014, with its owned studios together with Alan Wake Remastered co-developer D3T, Name of Responsibility: Black Ops Chilly Struggle and Marvel’s Avengers co-developer Heavy Iron Studios, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD developer Tantalus Media, Age of Empires sequence co-developer Forgotten Empires, Hollywood manufacturing companies firm Blindlight, and company PR agency Fortyseven Communications, amongst many others. Key phrases acquired a minimal of 4 corporations per yr between the years of 2016 and 2023. As of the top of 2023, Key phrases employed over 13,000 folks around the globe, per its annual report.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You could find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Bought a narrative tip? Ship it to [email protected].