EA will acquire Titanfall developer Respawn for over $400 million

Publisher Electronic Arts has announced that it intends to purchase Respawn, the developer of Titanfall, for over $400 million. Respawn CEO Vince Zampella confirmed this news today to VentureBeat. This announcement comes only weeks after EA revealed that it would close down Visceral Games and transfer the development of its Star Wars project to another team.

This deal will apparently cost EA up to $315 million in cash and stock, plus a possible bonus of $140 million. Previously, Respawn Entertainment was an independent studio founded by ex-Infinity Ward members Jason West and Vince Zampella, who created Call of Duty before going on to release Respawn’s first title, Titanfall, in 2014 exclusively on Xbox One.

Regarding this acquisition, Zampella said, “We have worked together a long time from the inception of the studio. [An acquisition] has come up from time to time. The question was, where we are in the industry, how do we take the next step in making bigger, better games. We see the need for bigger resources to make bigger games.”

Patrick Soderlund, Executive Vice President at EA, echoed his views as well, saying that the company wants the best games and a good relationship. Additionally, he said, “The creative freedom is still here: DICE, BioWare, our studios have creative freedom and creative integrity. That’s what gets those studios to make great games.”

EA has published all of Respawn’s games to date and intends to publish its untitled Star Wars project as well, unrelated to the one that Visceral was developing. The deal also supposedly includes the unannounced Titanfall 3 according to documentation obtained by Kotaku.

Via Kotaku