Sega Europe Ltd. and The Creative Assembly have recently unveiled the details of the acquisition of the Crytek Black Sea studios located in Bulgaria with sixty developers. Crytek had previously announced severed ties with the studio that started life as Black Sea Studios in 2001 before being acquired by Crytek in 2008. Most recently the studio was responsible for the MOBA, Arena of Fate.
The move furthers the growth of The Creative Assembly (Alien: Isolation, Halo Wars 2, Total War: Warhammer, etc), a studio that already grew by 37 percent in 2016, and now employs more than 500 people.
Tim Heaton, director of Creative Assembly Studios, commented that "with the success of the studios, this new acquisition would allow us to continue the studio's efforts and thus offer an ever more advanced gaming experience to the players."
As for Crytek the company has a renewed focus on its core business. Crytek's Managing Director, Avni Yerli, had this to say via press release: "In the past few weeks, we have worked closely with Creative Assembly and the team in Sofia to ensure that the talented staff at Crytek Black Sea would be well taken care of. We are delighted to be able to announce that SEGA's acquisition of Crytek Black Sea has been finalized along with the studio's transition from Crytek to Creative Assembly. This change is a part of the essential steps we are taking to re-focus on our core competencies and ensure Crytek is a healthy and sustainable business moving forward. We would like to thank the Sofia team for their passion and dedication and are looking forward to seeing them do great things as part of Creative Assembly."
The Creative Assembly is currently working on several unannounced projects for 2017, and we can now add "further additions to this slate now being developed by the Creative Assembly Sofia team".