THQ IP Auction Held, Parts Sold

In the past we learned that THQ was being split up and sold piecemeal, with its various IPs and assets going to the highest bidder. This was not the original plan - the company originally wanted to be sold intact, so they could retain their structure and continue developing games while stalking horse bidder Clearwater Capital took charge of their finances.


Darksiders 2 was not picked up and remains with THQ

Today however, the sale has gone through - and it has been auctioned off in parts to the highest bidder. Below is a list of the studios and where they've been sold to, as explained in the employee letter discovered by Polygon - along with some of our thoughts on what these sales mean for the franchises developed by each studio.

Ubisoft buys THQ Montreal, South Park: The Stick of Truth
This is great news for people who are excited for the Obsidian developed South Park: The Stick of Truth. The game is still slated for a 2013 release - though it probably won't make it by May as we'd previously believed.

It's bad news for Patrice Desilets though, who bailed on Ubisoft Montreal to head THQ's Candian Studio. Now he's back at Ubisoft - and that's definitely going to be awkward, because at one point Ubi were accusing THQ of stealing its employees.

SEGA grabs Relic Entertainment, Company of Heroes
SEGA have had a long run of success with Creative Assembly’s Total War series, so they should know what to do with Company of Heroes. Excellently, this ensures Company of Heroes 2 will come out, which is good because it looks brilliant. And hey, maybe Relic can give Creative Assembly some tips on how to make actually fun combat!

Crytek purchases Homefront
Two years ago Crysis 2 and Homefront went head to head to compete for our Quarter 1 FPS love. Months later THQ announced it was getting Crytek to make Homefront 2. Now Crytek is both making and owning Homefront. Who won that war? Fans of pretty games with little substance, that's who.

Deep Silver buys Volition, Saints Row and Metro
Deep Silver are best known for Dead Island, but they have been publishing video games in Europe for a while - which can only be good news. Excellently, this purchase means Metro: Last Light is still going to come out and we can no doubt look forward to another excellent Saints Row game from Volition at some point.

Take Two purchases Evolve, the unannounced Turtle Rock game
Evolve is the CryEngine 3 game coming from the Left 4 Dead developers sometime in the near or distant future - and it's now owned by Take 2 Interactive. We've seen nothing of this game - all we know is that Turtle Rock have been making it for quite some time and they have a pretty good track record with co-op first person shooters. According to Polygon, Turtle Rock bid $250,000 to own the IP itself.

The rest
Vigil games - the company behind the Darksiders series - did not get purchased in the auction. This doesn't mean we won't see another Darksiders game - but it does change the odds quite considerably. The WWE IP is rumoured to have been purchased by Take Two, but full details of the deal aren't in yet. Sega purchased the Warhammer at the end of last year, and with the purchase of Relic the 40K licence should head there as well.

It's time to pour a forty for the chance of a Blood on the Sand 2, as that homie is probably gone for good - and the two people who bought a uDraw are pretty much guaranteed to not be getting any new games for it now.

From here on out
A lot of people lost their jobs today. A lot of great developers and designers and QA testers and people who loved working in the games industry will have to go home and try to work out what they're going to do next. Some of them will find work elsewhere, some of them will use this hardship as inspiration to create the game they've always wanted - but some will leave the games industry and never come back. It's a sad day for videogames, and the sadness doesn't end here.