ZeniMax buys MachineGames

By Robert Purchese Published 11 November, 2010

Starbreeze alumni using id Tech 5.

ZeniMax Media - the company that owns Bethesda, id, Arkane and Tango - has bought another studio: MachineGames.

This developer was formed in 2009 by the founders of Starbreeze - the studio behind the Riddick games (Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena) and comic-book conversion The Darkness.

MachineGames is busy making a new game using the impressive id Tech 5 engine. Bethesda Softworks (not Bethesda Game Studios - the developer part) will publish, but for now all details on the project are held back.

MachineGames CEO Jerk (!) Gustafsson said working with Bethesda and id was a "tremendous opportunity". He labelled his new project a "AAA title" that will "push the game development envelope".

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (11) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • BillyBrush #1 2 years ago

    The founders of Starbreeze? If you say so

    Way back when Edge had a feature on this lot...at the time there were only about 5 of them and they were convinced they could produce a big AAA game....i suppose they've demoed something shit hot to Zenimax and got a deal....it'd be interesting to know how many of them there are now.

  • abot #2 2 years ago

    ZeniMax has been on a huge spending spree buying up alot of companies over the past couple of months. Where are they getting all this money from? Its not like they have an IP like a COD or GTA that sells millions and millions of units.

  • Floppy #3 2 years ago

    ZeniMax's recent acquisition speed worries me a little. At some point there's got to be a crash, and I don't think it'll be pretty.

  • Naptime #4 2 years ago

    Since Tech 5 is only allowed for zenimax studios I'm guessing they just got the tech, and we wont hear from them for another 2 years.

  • davisorle #5 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 20:44:35 16-04-2012

  • AnsemsApprentice #6 2 years ago

    Starbreeze said they weren't doing the Darkness 2. . .is it MachineGames then? Wouldn't be surprised.

  • StolenGlory #7 2 years ago

    They certainly could have worse tools to use for their title.

  • JeremyRPS #8 2 years ago

    They can buy out whatever they want and recover it all and then some when Rage and the next Elder Scrolls game hits the stores (regardless of your interest, they will sell like crazy). I would say right now is a pretty smart time for them to buy the world.

  • Plewt #9 2 years ago

    No, the cash is not coming from game sales, it's from some big outside investor just for this purpose.

  • Paul_cz #10 2 years ago

    With board of directors containing people like Jerry Bruckheimer, Robert Trump and Leslie Moonves, they could buy 10 other studios and still be fine.

    Honestly, I just want them to get Obsidian, give them idtech5 and Fallout 4 and be done with it.
    Edited by Paul_cz at 11/11/10 @ 17:33

  • Zaiz #11 2 years ago

    Zenimax secured millions in venture capital, plus they are based on Bethesda. It also isn't a bad investment, they've secured several excellent studios, all of which will probably sell hugely. I'm not worried.