Certain Affinity, the co-development studio behind Hogwarts Legacy, a shelved Halo Infinite battle royal recreation, and an early rendition of the Excellent Darkish reboot, has been acquired by Keywords Studios.
In a press release published to its website, Keywords introduced it could be buying Certain Affinity for an undisclosed sum. This brings Keywords a workers of 180 people throughout the U.S. and Canada engaged on “a variety of introduced and unannounced initiatives,” together with Exodus from Archetype Entertaiment, Final Expedition with Gala Video games, and an authentic FPS codenamed Undertaking: Loro. Per the press launch, Certain Affinity will proceed to be led by present administration, together with CEO Max Hoberman and president and COO Paul Sams.
Certain Affinity is best-known for its co-development work going again to the studio’s founding in 2006 by former Halo builders. Since then, it is continued to work as a supporting studio on the Halo sequence, in addition to Name of Responsibility, Left 4 Useless, Doom (2016), and others. Undertaking: Loro is its first wholly-owned new undertaking.
Again in April, Certain Affinity laid off 25 employees, 10% of its workforce, citing industry-wide slowdowns in funding and investing in new lead and co-development initiatives as a key purpose.
That is Keywords Studios’ second acquisition in 2024, having picked up Wushu Studios back in August. The corporate itself has been quietly amassing a large portfolio of studios and firms beneath its label ever since 2014, with its owned studios together with Alan Wake Remastered co-developer D3T, Name of Responsibility: Black Ops Chilly Warfare and Marvel’s Avengers co-developer Heavy Iron Studios, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD developer Tantalus Media, Age of Empires sequence co-developer Forgotten Empires, Hollywood manufacturing providers firm Blindlight, and company PR agency Fortyseven Communications, amongst many others. Keywords acquired a minimal of 4 firms per yr between the years of 2016 and 2023. As of the finish of 2023, Keywords employed over 13,000 individuals round the world, per its annual report.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You will discover her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Acquired a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.