THQ Nordic has made it clear that their real goal is to reassemble the shambling corpse of THQ one piece at a time. This Frankenstein’s game development monster began way back when THQ went under and Nordic decided they would be the valiant scientists to conduct this little experiment. THQ Nordic announced that another major portion of the puzzle is now back where is belongs; Deep Silver is back under a THQ banner.
Deep Silver, along with the rights to franchises like Homefront, Metro, Dead Island, and Saints Row, and now belong to THQ Nordic. Nordic has stated that Deep Silver and it’s parent company, a German media group called Koch Media, would operate separately from Nordic. And they have said no financial restrictions will be placed on their newly acquired developers, hopefully meaning no layoffs.
Deep Silver had been doing fairly well as a smaller game publisher even with some missteps like Agents of Mayhem. You could often see newer, less mainstream titles getting the Deep Silver backing. THQ Nordic seems adamant that Deep Silver and Koch Media will operate as they always have, but I wonder what Nordic will do as soon as another Agents of Mayhem mishap happens.
It’s really strange to see anyone desire the days of old THQ. It makes sense for a company the size of Nordic to want a few extra franchises, especially successful ones like Metro or Saints Row, in their pocket. However it’s hard to believe that old THQ will somehow be better in someone else’s hands. Here’s hoping Nordic knows when to pump the brakes before we’re talking about uDraw tablets all over again.
