NetEase, the developer and publisher of numerous games including Naraka: Bladepoint and Diablo Immortal, announced their newest studio: Quantic Dream. The French developer is known for creating a series of narrative-focused games, including Heavy Rain, Detroit Becomes: Human, and Beyond Two Souls.
This marks the first European company to be acquired by NetEase, as the company stretches its financial fingers around the world to acquire studios left and right. With this particular acquisition, NetEase said the studio will “continue to operate independently” as it develops games across all platforms.
The studio will also apparently continue to support and publish games developed by third parties, which is great news if you like the look of Under the Waves – which debuted at Gamescom earlier this month and is published by Quantic Dream And developed by another French team in Parallel Studio.
In an official press release announcing the acquisition, Quantic Dream founder David Cage wrote: “NetEase Games values our creative freedom and the drive and passion of our uniquely diverse team. Now, we will be able to accelerate us as a team Shared vision to create landmark games that touch people on an emotional level. We are making highly differentiated games and I firmly believe the best games have yet to come from Quantic Dream.”
This year has been a big one for Quantic Dreams. Along with this news, they’re also working on Star Wars: Eclipse – a narrative title set in the wildly popular sci-fi world, and we haven’t seen any gameplay or release date yet.
The Quantic Dreams game has always been a love it or hate it thing. While they’re taking a big chunk of the gaming industry’s blockbuster narrative pie, others like Supermassive Games are cutting their share with The Dark Pictures Anthology, we recently spoke with game director Tom Heaton. Plus, you’ll get a new story from Borderlands – the successor to the much-loved choice-based RPG from older Telltale games (they’re back with a new game themselves).
What do you think this acquisition will bring? Do you think this is a good move by NetEase, or do you think Quantic Dreams is not a good choice? let us know!
