Tencent acquires Back 4 Blood developer Turtle Rock Studios

Tencent has quietly expanded a ton in recent years, adding new studios to its roster and making strategic investments in a number of independent studios. The company's latest acquisition is a pretty major one – with Tencent picking up Turtle Rock Studios. 

Turtle Rock Studios made a name for itself with Left 4 Dead back in the day, before selling the IP to Valve. In recent years, the company has turned its attention to other projects, like Back 4 Blood, which just launched this October.

Now, Turtle Rock will no longer be independent and will become part of Tencent. Under new ownership, the studio will continue to be led by its co-founders, Phil Robb and Chris Ashton. All current studio operations will continue as planned and the acquisition will apparently have no impact on continued development for Back 4 Blood.

Tencent also owns studios like Riot Games, Funcom and Sharkmob, while also holding stakes in companies like Epic Games, Dontnod Entertainment, Supercell, Grinding Gear Games, Remedy Entertainment and more. Tencent also has minority stakes in several major video game publishers, including Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard and Paradox Interactive.

KitGuru Says: While I wasn't expecting to see Turtle Rock bought out before the end of this year, I also can't say I'm surprised that the studio looked to join forces with a larger entity. Evolve was a massive failure and while Back 4 Blood had a great launch, the number of active players has been slowing down. Now, Turtle Rock will have plenty of financial backing for its future projects. 

Become a Patron!