Frontier Developments, makers of spaceship-tinkering and racecar-tinkering games, announced that it is acquiring Complex Games, the Canadian studio behind Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters (open in new tab). This is the first time Frontier has acquired a development studio, and perhaps for that reason, it is acquiring a studio it has worked with before: Daemonhunters was published by Frontier Foundry, the publishing arm of Frontier.

Beyond the usual talk of portfolio enhancement, growth and expansion, Frontier's acquisition announcements are all about location, location, location: by acquiring Complex Games, Frontier will "establish a core development base for Frontier in Manitoba, Canada," and "video game development talent and a growing region."

Manitoba is currently a bit of a hotbed of gaming, in part because of its tax credits (open in new tab) for game development. Ubisoft announced earlier this year that it would triple the number of employees in Winnipeg (opens in new tab).

Complex Games currently has a team of 20 people, and the acquisition by Frontier means that the company will be able to "develop even more ambitious future titles" in the coming years. But don't worry, Complex Games is not worried. The announcement clearly states that Complex's growth will take place "while nurturing Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters," and there is no indication that Frontier is going to stop major updates to F1 Manager 2022 (opens in a new tab). Let's hope that the uproar that occurred when Frontier was thought to be canceling a major update to F1 Manager 2022 (open in new tab) does not happen again.

Hopefully this is good news for Complex as well. Complex has the rare honor of actually making an excellent Warhammer 40K game, and in fact ranks #12 on our Best Warhammer 40K Games list (opens in new tab). We gave "Daemonhunters" an 87% (open in new tab) in our review, praising its "vivid, meaty art style that oozes personality into corrupt levels and enemy units," and smartly mixing Warhammer nonsense with XCOM-style tactics and strategy He praised the game for its smart mix of Warhammer nonsense and XCOM-style tactics and strategy. If Frontier's ownership leads to more games like this, I'm all for it.