The authors of the successful battle royal Garena: Free Fire bought Phoenix Labs studio. The latter developed the Dauntless frituplein.
Dauntless
Garena announced the purchase today, writes Gamesindustry.biz .
There are few details. The cost of Phoenix Labs is not called. It is known that the studio will provide funding and creative freedom, and its CEO Jesse Houston will retain his post.
For Garena, this is not the most obvious acquisition. It specializes in mobile games and mainly operates in the Southeast Asian market. Phoenix Labs is a Vancouver—based studio that develops games for PC and consoles with an eye on AAA.
Nevertheless, the parties to the deal stated that it would allow them to become stronger in these areas. Phoenix Labs plans to enter the mobile segment and strengthen itself in new regions for it. These include not only Southeast Asia, but also Latin America, where Garena is also present. Battle Royale of this company has already become the highest-grossing mobile game in these markets.
However, now the Phoenix Labs team is fully focused on supporting Dauntless. Recall that this project about hunting giant monsters on the soft launch attracted 3 million players. After the release, its audience quickly grew to 14 million. This is an impressive growth for a cooperative indie game.
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