Want to hear something reassuring? No major games publisher can ever truly die – just be gutted, sold off, and puppeteered by a new owner. Hrrm, that doesn’t sound so good now I’ve written it down.
Expect to see the THQ splash screen pop up in a near-future videogame or three. Nordic Games picked up the lion’s share of THQ’s back catalogue rights – and now the small Austrian outfit plans to tackle its awareness problem using the old publisher’s name.
“It was kind of surprise to some industry veterans and players that we were the winner of the auction of the THQ titles,” Nordic general manager Klemens Kruezer told Polygon. “The challenging fact is nobody has ever heard about Nordic Games before [the THQ auction]. There were so many articles with the headlines ‘Who the fuck is Nordic Games?’.”
Consequently, Nordic returned to what remained of THQ to buy the company’s trademark. Nordic are already using the THQ Facebook page – to the confusion of many – and plan to release games under the publisher’s name.
Darksiders 3 is the game most are clamouring after – but Kreuzer asked for patience.
’“We want to be able to do it right,” he said. “The owner of Nordic Games has given [interviews] where he has said that he doesn’t want to make a shitty sequel.”
More announcements will come at Gamescom in August. Long live THQ?