Image: FromSoftware
Elden Ring wasn’t just a hit with fans of FromSoftware’s notoriously difficult action RPGs. Today Tencent Holdings and Sony announced that they have acquired 30% of the shares of the developer of the Souls series, split in favor of Tencent. FromSoftware is expected to earn $260 million from the deal.
Today’s announcement by FromSoft’s parent company, Kadokawa, revealed that Sony and Tencent are acquiring 14.09% and 16.25% of FromSoft, respectively. The statement indicates that Kadokawa wants FromSoftware to be able to expand its development efforts; Kadokawa sees “improved capabilities for the creation, development and deployment of [FromSoft] Game IP as one of the [Kadokawa] The group’s top priorities.”
One of the goals is to give FromSoft the resources needed to turn Elden Ring into a franchise that goes beyond video games.
Elden Ring was a long time coming, building on a foundation first established in FromSoftware’s pioneering 2009 PS3 game Demon’s Souls. A set of three spiritual sequels in the form of the Dark Souls trilogy, as well as two other similar titles (Bloodborne and Sekiro), certainly expanded the audience for these difficult and cryptic action RPGs. But none have reached critical mass like Elden Ring, which outsold household names like Call of Duty and sparked viral streaming sensations and hype that just won’t die.
Tencent, a Shanghai-based conglomerate, has continued its trend of investments and acquisitions. It owns 5% of Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry publisher Ubisoft, completed an acquisition of League of Legends developer Riot Games, owns 40% of Epic Games, and has stakes in many, many, many, many others game companies As Polygon points out, it also owns 5% of Activision Blizzard, which will be transferred to Microsoft if this megacorp’s remarkable attempt to acquire the clearly controlled Call of Duty publisher.
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Sony has also been on a big spending spree, although it seems a bit more modest compared to Tencent. Perhaps most notably, Sony acquired former Microsoft affiliate Bungie for $3.6 billion in January. PlayStation also made a move to acquire Bluepoint, the studio that made a name for itself with critically acclaimed remakes. Sony also invested $1 billion in Epic Games in April.
Anyway, maybe FromSoft can use the new money to add an easy mode so I can finally finish the damn things.