Black Forest Games has announced that it has split from THQ Nordic after being owned by the publisher for almost an entire decade. The studio was originally acquired back in 2017 and, since then, has been part of Embracer Group. Following the split, Black Forest Games has announced that it is co-founding a new group of indie game studios named Third Signal.
The German studio gained its independence from THQ Nordic through a management buyout, and its management team is working alongside Third Signal Ventures to found the new company. Black Forest Games is known for its work on titles like Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, and Fade to Silence, among others.
In a statement, Third Signal CEO and founder Andreas Tobler spoke about how small teams have been responsible for some of the best games in the last decade, and how Black Forest Games aims to work with other similarly-sized teams to create titles as part of its newly independent management.
“Some of the best games of the last decade came from teams of fifty, not five hundred. Black Forest Games is one of them, and the right studio to launch Third Signal. Our vision is to build a developer-driven group and give teams the independence, resources and creative freedom to continue their creative legacy and bring their own ideas to life.”
In a similar statement, Black Forest Games co-CEOs Adrian Goersch and Andreas Speer spoke about the time the studio spent under the stewardship of THQ Nordic, and also expressed excitement about what the future holds for the team.
“We are grateful to THQ Nordic and Embracer for nine good years and the games we made together. Now, we’re excited to shape our own future as owners again, to work on an exciting new project with a great team and strong partners behind us,” said Goersch. “There are lots of opportunities for lean, experienced teams, and we will use them,” added Speer.
For now, Black Forest Games hasn’t announced any plans regarding its next project as part of Third Venture. The larger group itself will also likely make announcements in the coming days about working with more studios, likely based out of European countries.
Black Forest Games was founded in 2012 by a team made up of 40 employees that included Speer serving as its CEO. The studio was created from the ashes of Spellbound Entertainment – the company behind games like Arcania: Fall of Setarrif – which had filed for insolvency in the same year. Black Forest Games itself introduced its first major project – a new game in the Great Giana Sisters franchise – through a Kickstarter campaign.
The most recent release by Black Forest Games was Destroy All Humans 2! – Reprobed in 2022 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. The title got a last-gen port the following year. For more details about it, check out our review, where we gave it a score of 7 out of 10 thanks to its vibrant visuals, modern controls and UI elements, and fun gameplay.
