Destineer Acquires Atomic Games

Destineer Studios, developer of the latest game in the Close Combat series, the 2K Games-published Close Combat: First To Fight, has acquired the franchise's original developer, Atomic Games. a copyright notice at Atomic's official website confirms the company's new status as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Destineer. The acquisition of Atomic brings the total number of in-house development teams at Destineer to four. Apart from Close Combat, Destineer is particularly known for its Bold Games label, which puts out mass-market PC value-priced games such as John Deere: American Farmer. Close Combat is Destineer's primary mainstream property, and its focus on authenticity has made it one of Destineer's highest-profile titles. A real-time strategy game sequel, to be called Close Combat: Red Phoenix and being developed by Atomic Games in the spirit of the original titles in the Close Combat series, is due out next year. Speaking to consumer game news site GameSpot, Destineer founder Peter Tamte commented: "We don't believe Destineer's value is found just in our technology, our content, or our training simulations. We think it comes from the integration of all of these components into a single whole. With our Atomic acquisition, we are making a commitment to make Close Combat the leading military RTS game once again."