Nexon to acquire former DICE GM Patrick Söderlund’s Embark Studios

Korean online games company Nexon has announced it’s to increase its stake in Embark Studios from 66.1% to 72.8%, with an option to purchase the Swedish firm’s remaining shares through Nexon stock over a five-year period.

The Stockholm-based games studio, which describes itself as being “on a mission to blur the line between playing and making”, was co-founded by CEO Patrick Söderlund in November 2018.

Söderlund previously served as DICE general manager, and more recently as EA’s chief design officer and EVP of worldwide studios.

Nexon president and CEO Owen Mahoney said: “Bringing Embark fully into the Nexon family will tightly integrate Nexon’s expertise in live operations and Embark’s capability of creating hit games that resonate globally to powerfully drive and accelerate delivering players great games designed to live on for years.

“Patrick has a proven track record for both strategic vision and operating a AAA studio. We’re confident about the future of Nexon’s game development and business in Western markets, especially with Embark in the family, and central to our strategy.”

Nexon board member Söderlund also commented: “Embark Studios is at the heart of Nexon’s ambition to create ground-breaking online game experiences that are successful on a global scale, especially outside Nexon’s core Asian markets.

“At Embark, we’re in the midst of developing new technologies, new development methodologies and a new attitude to game development, that will help influence and reshape Nexon’s game development in the years to come.”

Söderlund said in February the studio had already hired over 50 people and begun prototyping its first game. Developed with Epic’s Unreal Engine, it’s “a cooperative free-to-play action game set in a distant future, about overcoming seemingly impossible odds by working together”.