Tencent is apparently continuing its gobbling-up of all the games and studios you’re interested in: Improbable just announced it’s sold Inflexion Games to Tencent – that’s the Canadian studio led by Aaryn Flynn working on multiplayer survival sandbox Nightingale. The announcement doesn’t include a pricetag. Improbable CEO Herman Narula characterizes it as a “partnership” and “collaboration” with the Chinese games giant, as Nightingale continues to employ the SpatialOS infrastructure. [It’s not; see below.]
“[W]e want to make sure that the games developed by our internal studios benefit from the support of publishers with leading track records of bringing games to market,” Narula says.
“Improbable – the British technology company creating the critical infrastructure to power the coming age of virtual worlds and the metaverse – announced today it has sold the entirety of its stake in its development studio Inflexion Games to Tencent. The details of the agreement are undisclosed. The sale operation supports Improbable’s strategy, unveiled earlier this year, aimed at accelerating on Metaverse activities and refocusing the company’s content strategy. Inflexion Games is based in Edmonton, Canada, where CEO Aaryn Flynn (Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: The Old Republic) will continue to lead operations as the studio develops its first game, shared-world survival crafting title Nightingale. The acquisition will add Nightingale to the line-up of upcoming games from Tencent’s global gaming brand, Level Infinite.”
Nightingale was revealed at The Game Awards back in December 2021 as a “shared world survival crafting game” in a “Victorian gaslamp fantasy setting” that was at one point in development an MMO. It’s expected to launch on PC later this year.
