EMBRACER GROUP DIVIDES ITS EMPIRE: FELLOWSHIP ENTERTAINMENT TAKES GAMING’S BIGGEST FRANCHISES
Embracer Group announced plans to split into two publicly listed companies through the spin-off of Fellowship Entertainment, with a listing on Nasdaq Stockholm planned for calendar year 2027. It’s the second major restructuring in three years from a company that has spent much of the past decade acquiring studios at speed and shedding them almost as fast.
The division sends some of gaming’s most valuable properties to the newly formed company. Fellowship Entertainment gets the crown jewels: Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Tomb Raider, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Metro, Dead Island, Darksiders, and Remnant, along with the studios attached to those franchises. Fellowship Entertainment will be the home of critically acclaimed studios and companies including 4A Games, Crystal Dynamics, Dambuster Studios, Dark Horse Media, Eidos-Montréal, Fishlabs, Flying Wild Hog Studios, Gunfire Games, Middle-earth Enterprises, Redoctane Games, and Warhorse Studios.
The Embracer Group chair and key shareholder, Lars Wingefors, described the Fellowship assets as among the most undervalued in the industry in a letter to shareholders explaining the split. This move comes after the company was forced to cut 8 percent of its global workforce, amounting to around 1,400 jobs, and shut down or dispose of a number of games studios after claiming a $2 billion deal with an international entity had fallen through at the eleventh hour.
The announcement says a goal is to deliver at least 2 high quality AAA products every year starting next year 2027. On the same day as the announcement, Warhorse Studios confirmed it is developing both a new Kingdom Come title and a large-scale open-world RPG set in Middle-earth.
Will this restructure finally unlock the potential of these beloved franchises, or simply shuffle the deck chairs on a troubled ship?
