NetEase Acquires Quantic Dreams Marking its Way into Europe

By Muhammad ZuhairMarch 26, 2023

2 minutes read

After a trend of acquisitions, NetEase has stepped into the game and announced the purchase of Quantic Dream at an unannounced price.

The Paris-based studio behind cinematic games like Heavy Rain, Detroit: Become Human, and Beyond: Two Souls will continue to run independently following the sale, according to a press announcement from the Chinese corporation. With Quantic Dream being the first NetEase studio to be situated in Europe, the purchase will be a significant milestone in NetEase’s growth strategy.

In a statement released by Quantic Dream, they describe the acquisition as follows:

In order to continue our development and presence in the world, but also to fund other studios and become an international publisher, larger investments are needed for us to keep building our technology and infrastructure, to deliver ever more impressive next-generation games, to expand our team and to develop several projects simultaneously.
We met NetEase about 4 years ago and offered them to join us as a minority shareholder in January 2019. During this time, we have learned a lot about each other. We started working together on small and large projects, we enjoyed working together and discussed a lot about our sector and our vision for the future. We discovered that we share the same desire to create bold, highly qualitative work that makes an impression.”

The narrative action-adventure game Star Wars Eclipse is currently being developed by Quantic Dream, a studio that has historically specialized in story-driven, choice-based adventure games. Last Monday, it said it would release the underwater adventure game Under the Waves.

Games by Blizzard Entertainment, such as Diablo: Immortal and World of Warcraft, are also published in China by NetEase. The company recently invested in a new studio founded by former Bethesda Game Studios designer Jeff Gardiner and Obsidian Entertainment member Charlie Staples, and it also recently hired Toshihiro Nagoshi, the creator of the Yakuza video game series, who previously worked for Sega, and Hiroyuki Kobayashi, a former Capcom producer.

There is little doubt that the purchase would create new opportunities for the sector to grow. We are excited to see what the merger will bring to the table because both studios have produced excellent work throughout the course of their respective careers.