Officials from British developer Rebellion have confirmed that the company has acquired internal development studio Strangelite from Empire Interactive for an undisclosed sum of money.
Relatively little-known internal studio Strangelite was responsible for PC film license
Starship Troopers as well as a variety of Sega PC conversions including
Virtua Tennis and
Crazy Taxi. According to a statement on the Strangelite website, the developer is now officially a part of the Rebellion group of studios and is work on two unidentified first person shoot ‘em-up titles on the PC and consoles.
Representatives from UK publisher Empire announced that the company had ended talks with a potential buyer on Wednesday. Although never officially identified, the buyer was believed to be fellow British publisher SCi, who recently acquired Eidos Interactive.
The move for Strangelite follows Rebellion’s recent acquisition of the assets of erstwhile
Tomb Raider developer Core Design (including franchises such as
Rick Dangerous,
Chuck Rock and
Thunderhawk). Recent rumors in UK trade paper MCV have also now linked Rebellion with its own acquisition bid for Empire Interactive – a possibility only partially denied by CEO Jason Kingsley.
Initially known for developing separate
Aliens vs. Predator titles on the Atari Jaguar and PC, Rebellion is now best known in the UK as the owners of prominent British comic book 2000 AD and all related characters. However, the company’s attempts to bring properties such as Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper to the video games market have so far met with relatively limited success.
