With the ship that is Embracer Group taking on water at an increasingly rapid rate, many have wondered whether Borderlands developer Gearbox will be another casualty of the Swedish publisher's financial woes. Thankfully, it won't.
Gearbox is being sold by Embracer to Take-Two Interactive all for a fee of $460 million. The fee in its entirety will be paid in the form of Take-Two shares, with Embracer intending to sell said shares to receive cash proceedings. The sale is expected to be completed in the first quarter of the 2024/25 fiscal year, which concludes at the end of June 2024.
The deal is however not the entirety of Gearbox and its IP. We're told that Gearbox Software, Gearbox Montreal, Gearbox Studio Quebec, and the Borderlands, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms, and Duke Nukem franchises are all moving to Take-Two, whereas Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (which will be renamed post deal), the Remnant and Hyper Light Breaker franchises, Cryptic Studios and Neverwinter Online and Star Trek Online, Lost Boys Interactive, and Captured Dimensions are all staying with Embracer. These retained companies will be integrated into other parts of the Embracer Group.
Take-Two Interactive has already commented on the sale and mentioned that Gearbox's upcoming pipeline includes "five sequels, two of which are from the Borderlands and Homeworld franchises, and at least one exciting new intellectual property."
2K's president David Ismailer went a step further to state: "We have loved partnering with Gearbox on every iteration of the Borderlands franchise and are excited to be in active development on the next installment in the series."
So there we have it, more Borderlands is coming and Embracer will no longer own Gearbox.