Swedish gaming giant Embracer Group acquired Gearbox in 2021 for $1.3 billion. A little more than three years later, Embracer Group is selling Gearbox Entertainment to Take-Two Entertainment, parent company of 2K Games and Rockstar, for $460 million. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of June.

However, Embracer will retain a piece of the Gearbox pie, in the form of Gearbox Publishing San Francisco, which will retain publishing rights to the "Remnant" series and "Hyper Light Breaker." The remaining business units will be renamed.

After years of seemingly monthly acquisitions of studios and publishers, the Embracer Group has been ruthlessly scaling back in order to survive. Last month, it sold Saber Interactive for $247 million and laid off about 1,400 employees by 2023. Last year it closed Saints Row studios Volition and Square Enix Montreal; rumors of Gearbox's exit began as early as last September.

Embracer's recent pessimism stands in contrast to 2021-22. That was a time when the company had made huge acquisitions ranging from The Lord of the Rings to some of Square Enix's former big western studios and had received significant investment from Saudi Arabia. However, the $2 billion deal collapsed in 2023 and was immediately followed by a "comprehensive" restructuring that left most of the studios that came under the Embracer Group in some form of distress. Needless to say, the deal must have cost a hell of a lot.

"Today's announcement marks the result of a structured and final divestiture process and is an important step in transforming Embracer for the future by notably reducing net debt and improving free cash flow," Embracer CEO Lars Vingefors said in a prepared statement. 'Through this transaction, we will improve profitability by reducing operational risk and transitioning to a leaner, more focused company.' [Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford said the same: "As a long-term major shareholder of Embracer Group, I believe in Embracer Group's strategy going forward, and I am confident that this transaction is a good fit for Embracer Group, for Take-Two, and I am fully confident that this is the best possible scenario and clearly a net positive arrangement for Gearbox Entertainment, of course. My primary concern has always been Gearbox, especially our talent and our customers. With this arrangement, I want to personally assure fans of our games that the experience they are developing at Gearbox will be the best it can be."

Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Two-Two, also indicated in his own prepared statement that such corporate machinations are for the greater good: Gearbox will become a part of 2K as a studio, presumably to allow 2K to continue to develop and publish the games it has been developing since the series began in 2009. will focus on the "Borderlands" games it has been publishing since the series began in 2009. For $460 million, Take-Two will also get Gearbox's other IPs such as "Homeworld," "Risk of Rain," "Brothers in Arms" and "Duke Nukem."