EA Acquires Respawn Entertainment For More Than $450 Million, New TITANFALL In The Works

Respawn Entertainment officially became an EA studio. Electronic Arts announced the acquisition of the Titanfall maker for $315 million in cash, plus an "additional variable cash consideration that is contingent upon achievement of certain performance milestones, relating to the development of future titles, through the end of calendar 2022" of $140 million, summarizing the purchase will cost the publisher around $445 million. But what exactly pushed EA to make such a bold move?

You may have heard about Titanfall Assault, the series' small-screen spinoff developed by Particle City and published by Nexon, a Tokyo-based company that specializes in producing online games mainly for PC and mobile. According to Kotaku, Nexon made an offer to buy Respawn, but EA had the first right of refusal allowing the company to buy the developer in less that 30 days. It's important to not forget that all the rights to Titanfall belonged at that time to Respawn Ent.

What about Star Wars and Visceral Games, you may ask? Visceral's Ragtag, their Star Wars game was apparently inferior to what Respawn had to offer. EA decided to support Respawn's vision, shut down the 70-person Visceral Games and cancel Ragtag, whatever it was supposed to be. 

"Our longtime partnership is grounded in a shared desire to push the boundaries and deliver extraordinary and innovative new experiences for players around the world. Together, we’ve brought this to life in the Titanfall franchise, and now with the Respawn team joining EA, we have exciting plans to accomplish even more amazing things in the future," said Andrew Wilson, CEO of EA.