Embracer CEO and co-founder Lars Wingefors said, “Today’s announcement marks the result of the final structured divestment process and is an important step in transforming Embracer into the future with notably lower net debt and improved free cash flow. Through the transaction, we lower business risk and improve profitability as we transition to becoming a leaner and more focused company.

“After evaluating several options for Gearbox, I am happy that we have reached a solution that is in the best interest of all stakeholders. Randy and the team have been great team members throughout the past years, and I would like to thank them all for that. As one of the world’s greatest games developers, I am confident that Gearbox will continue to innovate and thrive in their new home within Take-Two.”

Gearbox Entertainment CEO Randy Pitchford added, ”As a significant long-term Embracer Group shareholder, I believe in the strategy for the Embracer Group and am completely convinced that this transaction is the best possible scenario and an obvious net positive arrangement for Embracer Group, for Take-Two and, of course, for Gearbox Entertainment.

“My primary interest is always Gearbox, especially our talent and customers. I want to personally assure fans of our games that this arrangement will ensure that the experiences we have in development at Gearbox will be the best they can possibly be.”

Take-Two is no stranger to working with Gearbox, having published the Borderlands series, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, the underwhelming Battleborn and long-in-development Duke Nukem Forever under its 2K Games label. Gearbox’s sale follows that of Saber Interactive, recently acquired by a private investor group, and nearly a year of studio closures and layoffs at Embracer.

As for the future of Gearbox, it’s reportedly working on Borderlands 4, with leadership rumored to have faced a reshuffling, and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands 2, which allegedly saw a “soft” reboot. Stay tuned for more details and potential announcements in the coming months.

It may be hard to believe in a time when modern and futuristic shooters are the norm, but there was once upon a time when World War 2 shooters were all the craze. They were a dime a dozen, and it was hard to stand out. But one series that did manage to do so was Brothers in Arm. The games took an ultra realistic approach to combat and strived to be as historically as accurate. It was beloved, but there’s not been a new entry in many years. Gearbox knows there’s demand, though, apparently.

In an interview with Wccftech, Gearbox Producer Randy Varnell was asked about the franchise, saying that it has been floating around. He offered no real details or ideas about a new entry, but said “we would love to do something else there.”

While it’s interesting they are acknowledging the series, it’s hard to read much into it. There’s been talks of the publisher wanting to ‘do something’ with the franchise going back to 2015. While there was talks of a new game coming in 2018, the company has been silent since then. Is something actually coming from this series?

Founded all the way back in 1999, Gearbox actually spent the first several years of their life as a studio that worked on ports or side-chapters for other franchises, with everything from Half-Life to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater under their belts. It wasn’t until 2005 that they released their first original game, a World Wa 2 shooter for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC called Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30.

Immediately upon launch, the first game in the Brothers in Arms series was met with great critical reception from critics and audiences alike. At a time where the market was dominated by World War 2 shooters, most of which were too afraid to do anything that deviated from the rote formula that had proven to be successful in the market, Brothers in Arms came along and decided to do its own thing. Instead of fast-paced run-and-gun shooting, it placed on emphasis on tactical firefights where you would lay down suppressing fire and flank your enemies. Instead of telling a by-the-numbers Hollywood blockbuster plot full of explosions and high-stakes action, Brothers in Arms turned out to be a surprisingly emotional and effective portrayal of war. Instead of being all about the action Brothers in Arms placed its focus, first and foremost, on the characters, on their development, and on their bonds. 

With their very first original title, Gearbox Software established themselves as a force to be reckoned with, and Brothers in Arms established itself as a property to keep an eye on. A sequel was pretty much guaranteed after the success of the first game, and it didn’t take too long to launch. In fact, it came out in the same year that the first game did, with a gap of just a few months separating the two of them. 

Called Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood, the second game in the series was as well received as the first game was (though the PS2 version did fall significantly short as compared to the other two). It was praised for a lot of the same strengths as its predecessors, such as the strength of its non-scripted gameplay, its tactical firefights, and its emotional and mature storytelling, while critics also found that it had made some notable improvements to AI, making it, impossibly enough, an even better experience than the first game in terms of gameplay. 

Brothers in Arms was only going from strength to strength, then. Its stock continued to soar, Gearbox continued to pick up the plaudits, and anticipation for an inevitable third game in the series continued to rise. Unlike the first two games in the series, there was a considerable gap separating the second and third instalments. Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway arrived three years after the second game’s release, this time releasing on the newer and more powerful consoles on the market. Unlike its predecessors, its reception on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC was more or less the same. And how was that reception? Well, not nearly as positive as its predecessors- but not bad by any means, either.

Gameplay elements in Hell’s Highway saw major improvements over the first two games in the series, with stronger mission design and better enemy AI leading to combat that felt even more tactical and engaging. The squadplay element was also emphasized a lot more with a number of simple yet effective new mechanics. Where Hell’s Highway faltered was in its story- which, to be clear, was still a good one by and large, but was a lot more inconsistent than fans would have expected, especially in terms of the weird directions it took at some key sections.

Beyond that core trilogy, there’s been no shortage of Brothers in Arms titles- either Gearbox or other developers have made a number of spinoffs for various platforms. 2006 saw the release of Brothers in Arms: D-Day for the PSP, jointly developed by Gearbox and Ubisoft Shanghai, a game that received lukewarm reception at best, as you’d expect from a first person shooter on the PSP. The next year, in 2007, Nintendo’s handheld also got some love, with the third person shooter (a rarity for the series) Brothers in Arms DS for the, well, DS- which was better received than the PSP game, but barely so. That was also ported to N-Gage (remember when that was a thing?) in 2008, and was called simply Brothers in Arms. 

Beyond that, there were also a couple of other mobile titles and a remastered compilation. 2008 was the busiest year in the series’ history, seeing a total of five releases – one of which was Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, one was the aforementioned remastered collection, and the other three were mobile games. After that, the series tapered off significantly. 

2010 and 2014 both saw the releases of a mobile Brothers in Arms titles apiece. Meanwhile, a new game in the series, Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 was announced in 2011 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. That eventually got turned into a completely new IP, with Gearbox decided that it would work better outside the Brothers in Arms series- but it materialized into nothing, and eventually got cancelled (with many of its ideas and elements ending up in Battleborn instead). 

So as it stands right now, 2014 was the last time we saw a Brothers in Arms game- and that, too, was a mobile title. If we’re talking about a mainline console entry, we’d have to go all the way back to 2008 with Hell’s Highway. We’ve all been waiting a long time to get our hands on a proper sequel- this is a series that, at least as far as its mainline titles are concerned, never fails to deliver, and clearly, it’s been successful for Gearbox. So where the hell is the fourth mainline Brothers in Arms game?

Well, the answer to that question, blessedly, is- it’s coming. We know it’s coming. We know there’s going to be a new sequel, and we know that it’ll continue to follow the story of Sergeant Matthew “Matt” Baker. All the way back in 2015, Gearbox Software said that they wanted to make a new Brothers in Arms game, and even though they didn’t explicitly say that anything was in development, it was clear that they hadn’t given up on the franchise. Later in that same year, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford said that the studio was in the early stages of getting started on the project.

It wasn’t until 2017 that we started hearing concrete details on the next game in the series though. In an interview at E3 2017, Pitchford confirmed that it was in development at Gearbox, that it was going to feature Sgt. Baker, that it would be “authentic”, and that it would be published by Gearbox’s own label (with the studio having re-acquired the rights to the franchise when Ubisoft dropped them in 2012).

In that same interview, Pitchford also confirmed that it would follow the same tactical and strategic direction in terms of combat as its predecessors, and would still be quite focussed on storytelling. For the latter, Pitchford pointed out that thanks to Gearbox’s work with Telltale on Tales from the Borderlands, the studio had learned new techniques on how to blend storytelling and gameplay more effectively, which we would see materializing in the next Brothers in Arms title. 

Then, in 2018, Gearbox confirmed that they were still working on the game, but said that they weren’t ready to officially announce it just yet, before re-iterating those statements just a couple of months later.

So, we know that a new Brothers in Arms game is in development, and that it’ll be out sooner or later- the question is, when will that be? Looking at the timeline of its development and at Gearbox’s other commitments, we might be able to narrow down that release timeframe. Borderlands 3 is almost upon us, which means that soon, the bulk of Gearbox will be focused squarely on Brothers in Arms. Sure, there will be people working on expansions, DLCs, and continued updates to the looter shooter, but the majority of the resources will now likely be going into their next project. 

Brothers in Arms has been in development since at least 2017- since that’s when Gearbox first started saying in clear terms that they were working on it. Even if we assume that a large part of that year was spent in pre-production, that would still mean that principal production on the game has been ongoing for at least over a year, if not more. 2020, in context of all that, would seem like a pretty good bet for when it releases, which means that we should start hearing more concrete things about the game in the months following Borderlands 3’s launch. 

All that is, of course, pure speculation, based on a lot of vague information. The only unequivocal truth that we know is that a proper Brothers in Arms sequel is very much in development- and the wait for it is going to be absolutely excruciating.

While the long-awaited but still unannounced Borderlands 3 is the game that Gearbox gets asked about most often, the developer does have other high profile games in development as well, that a large number of people have been eagerly waiting for official word on. One such game is a new Brothers in Arms title, which is known to be in development, but hasn’t yet been officially confirmed (much like Borderlands 3 then).

Responding to queries by fans on Twitter, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford touched on the topic of Brothers in Arms yet again, saying that though the developer currently has something in the works, they’re not quite ready to share any information about it just yet.

When asked about why Gearbox is holding off on high profile announcements for games that pretty much everyone knows are already in development, Pitchford said that though development of certain projects is not a secret to anyone, the developers themselves are concerned about creating said games themselves, implying once again that they will be sharing information only when they’re ready to do so- which goes for Borderlands 3 as well.

Gearbox recently teased new reveals at the upcoming PAX East– speculation has suggested that that could be referring to Borderlands 3, but could a new Brothers in Arms game be in line for a reveal as well?

So sorry I don’t have an answer for you yet. We are working on something. I look forward to when it’s ready to share.

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) March 2, 2019

We are working on some things Brothers in Arms related… not ready to announce anything yet.

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) February 28, 2019

It has been no secret that we have games in development and that includes games in the borderlands franchise. I cannot control what other people worry about. I’m worried about creating entertainment and will announce things when they are ready.

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) February 25, 2019

The Brothers in Arms franchise has been dormant for some time now, but recent speculation has hinted at the fact that that might not be true for much longer. And it seems like that speculation might indeed have some merit, because Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford has confirmed that the studio is indeed working on a new game in the World War II series.

Pitchford was recently asked about Brothers in Arms on Twitter, and about the possibility of a new game in the franchise, and he responded by saying that Gearbox is indeed working on something new. He didn’t give out much details, saying that the studio has been working on it for a while, and also that a lot of “awesome people” are involved in the development.

“I am starting to think it could be really good,” he continued, before saying Gearbox still has “more work to do” on the project before they can make any official announcements. Perhaps at E3? Or is that a little too early? Either way, we’ll keep you up to date as more info comes our way, so stay tuned to GamingBolt.

We are working on something. We’ve been working on it for awhile and there’s some awesome people involved and as it is developing I am starting to think it could be really good. I want to be sure before we announce. We have more work to do.

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) May 28, 2018

Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford has confirmed that his company’s classic franchise, Brothers in Arms, is still due to get a real sequel on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One- so far, the only impediment to progress is that the development of what Pitchford terms an ‘authentic’ sequel takes time.

“I think the next Brothers in Arms game has to be authentic and we have been working on that,” he said at Develop. “I feel we have unfinished business there with both the fiction and the history and I’d like to get into that.

“Sadly it takes a lot of resources, energy and money to do what must be done, so it’s not something I feel I could completely do alone. I need good partners for it, so we’ve been talking to great folks but it’s really putting all that together that’s the limiting factor.”

He did confirm that he would be talking about the game soon- potentially once the development partners had been decided.

“I feel like I’m on the brink of it, but we’re not quite there yet,” he added. “But we’re in the incubation phase with the next one there, for sure.”

Are you excited for a new Brothers in Arms game for the PS4 and Xbox One? What would you like to see in such a game? Let us know in the comments.

You might know Gearbox as the Borderlands company now, but long before it made its name with the original FPS/loot RPG hybrid, Gearbox was making Brothers In Arms, a series of well received shooters that were set in WW2. A lot of players have fond memories of those games, and so does, it seems, Gearbox, who said at GDC that they want to make a new one.

“A lot of people love Brothers in Arms and they love [series protagonist Sgt. Matt Baker]. Obviously we never really got to finish that story. We’ve always said, ‘Man, we want to go back to this,'” they said. But sensing the danger that their words might be misconstrued, they hastily added, “We have nothing to announce.”

Currently, Gearbox seems to be working on a new Borderlands game, allegedly the first one for the new consoles, as well as a remaster of the first Borderlands game.

Thanks, Gamespot.