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Avengers
The gaming industry was startled awake this morning with news that Square Enix had sold its western studios, Eidos and Crystal Dynamics, to Embracer Group for $300 million.
The deal, by most outside observer accounts, is a steal for Embracer, which recently bought Gearbox for $1.3 billion, and here it’s getting two talented AAA developers and a host of original IPs like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief and Legacy of Kain.
However, questions remain about what these two studios have been focused on for their last two projects, which were both licensed Marvel games under Square Enix, Marvel’s Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Specifically, what happens to Avengers, a live service game where fans are waiting around for substantive content, and what happens with potential future Marvel projects, like a theoretical Guardians sequel?
There is kind of an answer to this. As part of the livestream announcing the deal, Embracer was asked the question. They indicated that currently published games like Avengers and Guardians would be moving over after the deal, but future games would require working out a deal with the license holder (Marvel), and that approval has not been acquired yet.
That said, given that the deal seems mainly focused on listing all the classic gaming IPs that have come over to Embracer now, it seems unlikely that a main priority going forward would be a huge resurgence of Avengers content in year two after launch, past what’s already planned, or a sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy, critically praised but according to Square Enix’s own financials, caused Eidos to have a profit margin of just 0.65% in 2021.
We already know that Crystal Dynamics is now busy building a new Tomb Raider game in Unreal Engine 5, while at the same time, helping Microsoft out with Xbox’s Perfect Dark (I would assume that will continue). Eidos, meanwhile, seems poised to take on something like a new Deus Ex game, or dip back into an old IP that comes along with this deal like Thief. It just doesn’t make a ton of sense to throw them on Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
There has been a rift between Square Enix and its Western studios for a long while now, as they’ve always accused them of “underperforming” despite millions of sales and general critical and audience acclaim. But the numbers…do sort of support that, and going forward, it doesn’t seem like the Marvel license may be a priority for either Embracer or Square Enix to maintain at the moment, though plenty of Marvel titles are in the works elsewhere.
In short, this seems far more likely to resurrect series like Deus Ex and Thief than save Avengers’ live service ambitions or greenlight a Guardians sequel. And honestly, that may be the best path forward.
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