Embracer sell Neverwinter and Star Trek Online devs Cryptic, allowing them to gather their party and boldly go where Saber went before

Embracer Group’s undoing of their catastrophic multiple-year acquisition spree continues with the sale of Cryptic Studios and Arc Games, respectively the developers and publishers of Star Trek Online and Neverwinter.

The companies will become part of Project Golden Arc, a new outfit owned and led by members of the Arc Games management team, with $30 million of funding supplied by Chinese publishers XD Inc. As part of the sale, Embracer will keep hold of publishing rights for the previously Arc-published Remnant looter-shooters from Gunfire Games.

I’m happy that the MMO adepts of Cryptic – who laid off staff during Embracer’s self-inflicted debt crisis in 2023 – are striking out for new pastures. We were quite keen on Star Trek Online, with CJ Wheeler (RPS in peace) noting that “the game wraps itself fully in the design language of Star Trek, from the style of designer Michael Okuda’s ‘okudagrams’ for elements of the menus to the familiar ships you can take to maximum warp”.

As for Neverwinter, John Walker (RPS in peace) did a whole diary series on it back in 2013, calling it “enormous, jam-packed with so very much to do, extremely approachable, but elaborately complicated if you want it to be”. And then there’s the defunct but warmly remembered crime-buster caping of Champions Online and City of Heroes.

I’m not sure how many of the people who made those games remain at Cryptic, admittedly. Their most recent game Magic: Legends shut down before completion of the open beta.

Arc, meanwhile, are the former North American branch of the Chinese company Perfect World, initially created to localise the latter’s games. They’re also the publishers of Runic’s Torchlight games and Heart Machine’s Hyper Light Breaker.

Arc and Cryptic were acquired by Embracer in 2021. As part of this week’s sale, the rights for Arc’s recently published multiplayer game Fellowship will be transferred to Embracer’s subsidiary Coffee Stain, which will be spun off “into a standalone group of community-driven game developers and publishers by the end of calendar year 2025”.

After two years of mass layoffs, studio closures and cancellations, Embracer Group’s affairs are perhaps a little more stable but still notably debt-ridden and, well, wriggly. It’s like watching a beached octopus decide which limbs it can flog to passing seagulls in return for being dragged closer to the sea.

They’re in the process of splitting into several companies, approximately dedicated to board gaming, video gaming and The Lord Of The Rings. They sold Gearbox to Take-Two Interactive and Saber Interactive to Beacon in March 2024, but still retain possession of many notable developers including Fishlabs, Tarsier, Warhorse Studios, and Eidos-Montréal (who cut 75 staff in April) across their various subsidiaries.