Interestingly, the other two were not picked up by the new owner, so maybe Microsoft has something planned for them, or maybe the new owner just didn’t have the money to buy them from the Redmond giant…

Krafton (the publisher of Striking Distance Studios’ The Callisto Protocols and the battle royale formerly known as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and now PUBG: Battlegrounds) has announced that it has acquired the shuttered Tango Gameworks studio and the Hi-Fi Rush IP from Microsoft. This marks Krafton’s first investment in the Japanese gaming industry (as it’s a South Korean company). Tango Gameworks was founded in 2010 and was soon acquired by ZeniMax, becoming part of Bethesda until 2021, when ZeniMax was acquired by Microsoft and the studio closed (along with Arkane Austin) in May of this year.

With this integration, Krafton aims to work with Microsoft to ensure a smooth transition of power around Tango Gameworks so that developers can work on new projects alongside Hi-Fi Rush. Krafton will support the team to continue to innovate and enable developers to create fresh and exciting experiences. We haven’t seen a lot of games from the studio. After The Evil Within (a project by Shinji Mikami, former key member of the Resident Evil team) and its sequel, then Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush. These games will not disappear from digital stores, so they will not be affected by the change in ownership.

In any case, it is interesting that they want a smooth transition after the closure in May. This would have been a reasonable statement from them if they had made the announcement right after the news of the closure, because it would have made sense. Without that, it is a somewhat unusual statement from Krafton. Anyway, at least the name remains in the public domain. Just don’t force the development of PUBG: Battlegrounds on them.

Hopefully Hi-Fi Rush can get a worthy sequel under Krafton, if The Evil Within or Ghostwire: Tokyo don’t make it over to them.

Source: Gematsu, Krafton