SEGA acquires Crytek Black Sea, forms Creative Assembly Sofia

SEGA Europe and Creative Assembly have finished acquiring Crytek’s former Black Sea studio and have now created a new team known as Creative Assembly Sofia. The studio was best known for the 2004 game Knights of Honor, a historical real-time strategy game. The team was picked up by Crytek in 2008 and renamed Crytek Black Sea. Under the name Crytek Black Sea they finished one game in 2015, a free-to-play MOBA title named Arena of Fate which only made it to close beta before having its plugged pulled.

The new team Creative Assembly Sofia will be developing brand new titles and has 60 employees based in Bulgaria. With these new employees under the Creative Assembly umbrella, it means that the developer has grown by 37%, taking the developer to over 500 employees. Last year Creative Assembly continued to grow increasing its development space by 88% by adding a new 45-camera motion-capture studio and dedicated audio suites.

This is what Tim Heaton, Creative Assembly studio director had to say about the acquisition:

“Now in our 30^th year of games development, with an army of multi-million selling titles to our name and a history of world-renowned partnerships, Creative Assembly is proof of the UK games industry’s potential for global success. Due to this success, we are further expanding our UK base and developing additional projects overseas, whilst pursuing top talent from across the globe to join us, all in support of our commitment to creating high quality, authentic gaming experiences.Our continued growth allows us to be dynamic with our future projects, constantly seeking new opportunities and reaching a wider audience with our games.”

It seems that SEGA Europe’s new team, Creative Assembly Sofia will be part of the big Creative Assembly machine helping work on unannounced titles that we will be covering in the near future. While more of our readers care more about console games, its nice to have SEGA find big success in the PC market and expand with Creative Assembly Sofia. Check out a quote from Jurgen Post after the jump.

“The acquisition of Crytek Black Sea further enhances Sega Europe’s development capabilities and strengthens our ability to output diverse and engaging content for our IP. Creative Assembly Sofia will be working exclusively on content for Creative Assembly and will prove an invaluable asset given the multitude of unannounced titles currently in the works. This acquisition represents another step in the right direction for the growth of our global business, underlining our commitment to add value to our existing studios and our continued support for the UK games industry.”

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