Embracer Group's firesale continues with the company announcing plans to sell The Gearbox Entertainment Company to Take-Two Interactive Software for $460 million.
In a press release, Embracer Group confirmed it is divesting Gearbox Software, Gearbox Montreal, Gearbox Studio Quebec along with the Borderlands and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands franchises and more. The company will retain the rights to Gearbox Publishing San Francisco, which will be renamed prior to closing, the publishing rights to the Remnant franchise, the upcoming Hyper Light Breaker, and other unannounced games, Cryptic Studios (including MMOs Neverwinter Online and Star Trek Online), Lost Boys Interactive, and Captured Dimensions.
Take-Two Interactive, which is already one of the largest interactive entertainment companies in the world, will meanwhile acquire award-winning developer The Gearbox Company and its large portfolio of intellectual property, including the critically acclaimed Borderlands and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands franchises, as well as Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms, Duke Nukem, and Gearbox’s future pipeline.
In its own separate press release, Take-Two confirmed that Gearbox has six "key interactive entertainment projects in various stages of development." Among these projects is a new Borderlands game and a new Homeworld game, and "at least one exciting new intellectual property."
“Our acquisition of Gearbox is an exciting moment for Take-Two and will strengthen our industry-leading creative talent and portfolio of owned intellectual property, including the iconic Borderlands franchise,” said Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two. “This combination enhances the financial profile of our existing projects with Gearbox and unlocks the opportunity for us to drive increased long-term growth by leveraging the full resources of Take-Two across all of Gearbox’s exciting initiatives.”
Seeing as how the Borderlands games had previously been published by 2K, which is already owned by Take-Two, this feels like a natural transition that should hopefully result in taking Gearbox and the Borderlands franchise to an exciting new level.
Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford expressed a similar sentiment, stating: “Joining forces with Take-Two Interactive and 2K will help Gearbox ascend to our next level. Take-Two and 2K have demonstrated repeatedly their commitment to our engine of generating creativity, happiness, and profit. We set the bar for interactive entertainment and achieved remarkable results with groundbreaking, record-setting games when we worked together at arm's length as partners. I’m incredibly excited about what we can accomplish now that we're fully aligned as one."
The last mainline entry in the Borderlands series was 2019's Borderlands 3. In 2022, Gearbox released the spin-off Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, a sequel to Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, the game set within the world of a fantasy-themed tabletop RPG.
Take-Two is also the parent company of Rockstar Games, the developer of the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto franchise. Rockstar is readying to release GrandTheft Auto 6 which has a 2025 launch window, though there are reports that it could be delayed until 2026.