Horizon Chase Turbo Dev Purchased by Epic Games to Flesh Out Fortnite

Horizon Chase Turbo was the weirdest sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn. But then again, I was expecting Naughty Dog to come out with Unkarted at some point. 😭

I think they where already purchased by epic last year. The new thing is they got rebranded and are now a fortnite support studio.

EDIT: I was incorrect.

This is upsetting

I don't give two hoots about the ABK deal, but this type of thing bugs me.

It stifles the market and potentially robs us of novel and fun games, with talents funnelled into these big cash cow franchises, when they could be creating something that isn't Fortnite, FIFA or COD.

The diversity of the games market suffers.

Honestly I’m gutted. Loved Horizon Chase Turbo.
I still have it installed for whenever I have some time to kill. Captures that retro feel perfectly.

I wonder what happens to the inevitable sequel or even other kind of game the devs were working on

This is sad. I mean, in a way, I guess I'm happy for the devs who must have got the deal of a lifetime with this.
But as other have said, there's no way all these acquisition will help make future games more diverse and interesting.

Yay for consolidation of ownership! Death to the middle market!
ENDLESS RECURRENT PLAYER ENGAGMENT!!!!!

We are Fortnite. Lower your shields and surrender your developers. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

Guess it was cheaper and less hassle buying them outright than hiring them as contractors

god, doesn't anyone see how bad this situation is right now? 😡😡

@IndoorEnthusiast just the name fortnite is upsetting and unnerving 🤮🤮

@AFCC full of lootboxes skins and microtransactions is the best guess, it will just turn into a cash cow marathon 🙄🙄

I'll rather want Sony to have purchased this studio than that Firewalk because Horizon Chase Turbo was a legit and unique experience. Fortnite is trash.

So the studio that makes Dauntless gets a pass and that's published by Epic and had a partnership.

But this studio has to work on Fortnite. Not oh let the studio do their thing but have a bigger budget. No an Indie wasted away. What a joke. At least other publisher buyouts of Indies were more fair and can do things, here we have something that did a good job in such a space of arcade racing, besides many other game before and while oh their skills are being tested it's being used to waste time on a hit that already has enough people behind the game to make cosmetics, more chapters/seasons and so on like who cares. Let the Indie company make something different. If the Fortnite/other battle royales and genres before them bubble dies then oops we put our eggs into a basket for a trend that's over what a waste that would be.

Ewwwwww......gross 🤢

@SgtTruth Meh. The market will be fine. The thing about these buy outs is that the actual talent never stays at the studio. They take the massive paycheck and go create more studios.

Just look at the studios we got after EA bought and closed Bullfrog Productions: Lionhead, Two point Studios, and Media Molecule.

Ikumi Nakamura left Tango Gameworks, and now runs her own studio, Unseen.

Firewalk studio is formed of staffed with veteran AAA developers who have worked on franchises like Destiny, Call of Duty, Mass Effect, and more. Most will probably also leave and go start their own more studios.

@SgtTruth
Ditto here. ABK will still make the same games as before acquisition and many will be cross platform. A dev that had their own IP and creative talent being fed to the live service machine is rather sad and sadly this is far from the first of these acquisitions.