Chinese media giant Tencent is to become a majority shareholder in Techland, the studio behind Dying Light and Call of Juarez.
Techland CEO Paweł Marchewka has announced a “new chapter” in his studio’s history, as Chinese conglomerate Tencent is set to become a majority shareholder.
The Poland-based developer, best known for the earlier Dead Island games, Dying Light, and Call of Juarez, will retain ownership of its IPs, Marchewka wrote in a Monday blog post (via Rock Paper Shotgun), and will “continue to operate the way we believe is right.”
“Teaming up with Tencent will allow us to move full speed ahead with the execution of the vision for our games,” Marchewka wrote. “We have chosen an ally who has already partnered with some of the world’s finest video game companies and helped them reach new heights while respecting their ways of doing things.”
The Tencent deal will, Marchewka suggested elsewhere in the post, help Techland continue to build the Dying Light franchise, as well as aid in development of its next project, the untitled “narrative-driven fantasy epic” it first teased in March.
“We dream of turning Dying Light into the ultimate zombie game experience for players worldwide, providing you with multiple astonishing adventures and pushing the boundaries of solo and online modes to a totally new level,” Marchewka wrote. “Our open world action-RPG in a fantasy setting is already shaping up to become something truly special, and the goal here is to make sure it will live up to the expectations for our first new IP in almost a decade.”
Techland was originally founded by Marchewka in 1991 while he was still a teenager; initially, the firm focused on publishing software before it started developing games later in the decade. Its earlier titles tended to be sports, racing or simulation games, but it eventually found wider success with the western-themed shooter Call of Juarez in 2006.
Tencent’s stake will, inevitably, mean that Techland loses its independent status, though Marchewka is evidently upbeat about the company’s future with its new partners. For Tencent, Techland is but the latest in a string of deals it’s made with western game firms – it also has stakes of varying sizes in the likes of Riot Games, Epic, PlatinumGames and Sharkmob.
Tencent is also behind WeChat – a gigantic social media app used by some 1.2 billion people across China.
