Tencent Buys 15% Stake in Helldivers 2 Dev Arrowhead Studios for $80 Million 1

Arrowhead Game Studios, the developer behind the enormously successful Helldivers 2, has a new stakeholder in Chinese conglomerate Tencent.

The company has just acquired 15.75 per cent of shares in the studio, costing them $80 million.

Arrowhead's co-founders own the rest of the business, with the remaining shares split between Johan Pilestedt, Emil Englund, Malin Hedstrom, Peter Lindgren, and Anton Stenmark.

The studio as a whole is valued at roughly $532 million, according to Swedish outlet DI. The same report claims turnover of just under $100 million, and an operating profit of nearly $76 million.

In other words, Arrowhead's been raking it in, and now it has a partner that can aid it further with a foothold in China.

Getting Tencent involved "opens up opportunities for China as a market," says Pilestedt (via Google Translate). "Gaining access to the Chinese player base is the holy grail in the gaming industry."

Helldivers 2 has had its ups and downs, of course, but it's also the fastest-selling game in PlayStation's history, and that sort of thing won't have gone unnoticed.

Tencent has been really splashing the cash, investing in video game companies of all kinds recently, including Ubisoft, Kadokawa, and Kuro Games (Wuthering Waves) to name a few.

Are you still having a blast with this game? Let us know in the comments section below.

[source di.se, via eurogamer.net, insider-gaming.com]