We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

THQ Nordic shows surprising sass by insulting EA as it buys an indie studio

biomutant_planet

THQ Nordic has acquired Experiment 101. The move, announced today, means that Nordic now owns 100% of the rights to open-world, post-apocalyptic Biomutant.

Check out some more upcoming PC games.

Experiment 101 was founded in 2015, and one of its co-founders was Stefan Ljungqvist, formerly an art director and game director at Avalanche Studios, the team behind the Just Cause series and Mad Max. Their first game, Biomutant, is expected to launch for PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2018.

Biomutant made waves of one of the biggest hits of this year’s Gamescom. From what we’ve seen of the anthropomorphic kung-fu adventure so far, it’s set in a beautiful open-world threatened by a recurring enemy in the form of the last-ever meat eater. It’s roughly ten hours long, with a branching narrative allowing for multiple endings. You can check out 25 minutes of gameplay from PAX in the video above.

THQ Nordic, whose other games include Titan Quest and Elex, seem pretty pleased with themselves over the acquisition. When they announced the move on Twitter this morning, a fan asked them whether they were “doing an EA now.” Nordic replied, saying “No, we did not shut down a studio before it,” referring to EA’s recent closure of Visceral Games.