Tarsier Studios, the 65-person development team behind games such as gateway horror Little Nightmares, virtual reality's Statik, and recent Switch-exclusive The Stretchers, has been acquired by the Embracer Group, reports GamesIndustry.biz. Embracer is formerly known as THQ Nordic AB and is the parent company of THQ Nordic, Koch Media, and Coffee Stain Studios, the team behind Goat Simulator.
Tarsier's development house folds into the Embracer Group as they continue work on Little Nightmares 2, which was revealed earlier this year. The Little Nightmare IP remains under Bandai Namco ownership, and likewise The Stretchers remains a Nintendo property. The rights to Tarsier's debut title, Statik, now move to Embracer.
According to GI.biz, the Embracer Group "spent SEK 99 million on the acquisition, encompassing SEK 88 million ($9.34 million) in cash and SEK 11 million ($1.17 million) in newly issued B-shares." Following completion of Little Nightmares 2 for Bandai Namco, the studio will work on new intellectual properties for their new parent company.
Though their three-game output may be a small sample size, Tarsier has made up for it with consistently high-quality games accordign to critical consensus. Statik earned an OpenCritic "Mighty" rating with an 85 average and 100% recommendation score when it launched as a PSVR-exclusive in April 2017. It was praised for its clever use of the medium given how it requires players to fidget out of different puzzles "stuck" to your hands.
That same week, they also released Little Nightmares to Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Their bets-known title, the creepy Little Nightmares earned "Strong" scores for itself, with a 79 average from a massive pool of 133 critics.
Their most recent title, The Stretchers, is a co-op arcade game pitting players as a pair of panicked paramedics. Published by Nintendo, it too earned a "Strong" average of 75 when it launched a few weeks ago on Switch.
