This marks the first European company to be acquired by Netease, as the company stretches its financial fingers across the world to pluck up studios left and right. With this particular acquisition, the folks at Netease state the studio will “continue to operate independently” as it develops titles across all platforms. The studio will also apparently continue to support and publish third-party developed titles which is great news if you liked the look of Under the Waves — a game first revealed at Gamescom earlier this month which is published by Quantic Dream and developed by another French team at Parallel Studios. In the official press release announcing this acquisition, Quantic Dream founder David Cage writes: “NetEase Games values our creative freedom and the drive and passion of our uniquely diverse team. We will now be able to accelerate the vision we share as a group, of creating landmark titles that touch people on an emotional level. We have highly differentiated games in the making and I truly believe that the best is yet to come from Quantic Dream.” This is turning out to be a big year for Quantic Dreams. Alongside this news, they are still working on Star Wars: Eclipse — a narrative title set in the hugely popular sci-fi universe which we’ve yet to see any gameplay nor release date for. Quantic Dreams games have always been a love it or hate it affair. While they have taken up a giant portion of the blockbuster narrative pie in the games industry, other companies like Supermassive Games are cutting their own slice with The Dark Pictures Anthology, which we spoke with game director Tom Heaton about recently. Plus, you’ve also got the New Tales from the Borderlands on the way — a successor to the beloved choice-based RPG from the old Telltale games (who themselves are back and bringing out new titles). What do you think will come of this acquisition? Do you think it’s a good move by Netease, or is Quantic Dreams not a great buy in your mind? Let us know!
