Nacon Group acquires Daedalic Entertainment for $60 million

Nacon has announced its intention to acquire video game developer and publisher Daedalic Entertainment for 53 million euros ($60 million).

As partners in the upcoming Lord of the Rings: Gollum, the two companies have decided to strengthen their collaboration, which will give Nacom access to several intellectual property rights. The deal will also allow Nacon to benefit from Daedalic’s development and publishing expertise.

Founder and CEO Carsten Fichtelmann and COO Stephan Harms will continue to manage the company with a high degree of autonomy in development and publishing. Nacon will support future projects through the combined strength of its sales, publishing and marketing teams.

Daedalic Entertainment is a studio known for developing point-and-click adventure games and an independent publisher founded in 2007 and headquartered in Hamburg. It has developed and published more than 90 games and is one of the largest and oldest independent video game companies in Germany with a team of 87 people.

The studio has developed games for franchises such as Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth and its own IP, including the Deponia series, Shadow Tactics, Blackguards and The Whispered World. Daedalic Entertainment has announced that it will release another 9 new games in 2022.

With this acquisition, Nacon hopes to position itself as a leader in gaming, which will be the 16th studio it has acquired in less than four years.

“Through our current partnership on Gollum, we know that Nacon and Daedalic share the same values ​​and the same goal to provide gamers with a unique experience,” said Nacon Chairman and CEO Alain Falc. “As such, further collaboration seems logical and we are very pleased with this acquisition. It represents an important step in Nacon’s strategy.”

Carsten Fichtelmann, founder and CEO of Daedalic, said: “I am proud to look back on the past 15 years and the company’s growth during an eventful year where we were consistently at the top.”

“Daedalic Entertainment has established itself as a publisher and developer of great games across all genres and all relevant platforms, and has cemented that position globally. We are now taking the next step with Nacon to further develop the development by us Created game catalog by own team as well as many incredible indie studios.

“We’re looking back on the trust and partnership of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum and looking forward to a brighter future together.”

The upcoming action-adventure game Gollum is based on The Lord of the Rings and follows Gollum’s character before the events of the trilogy and The Hobbit. It’s scheduled to release on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S sometime this year.