Team Sonic Racing Developer Acquires The Chinese Room

by Javy Gwaltney on Aug 14, 2018 at 09:42 AM

The Chinese Room, the developer behind Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, had to lay off its staff last year after "financial pressures and health issues." While Co-founder Dan Pincheback didn't come out and call it a studio closure, it sure seemed like one. However, it looks like The Chinese Room has returned.

Sumo Digital, the developer behind Team Sonic Racing and Little Big Planet 3, have acquired the studio. Sumo Digital told GameIndustry.biz, that the reason behind the acquisition was so that The Chinese Room could "continue to create the unique, innovative games they are known and loved for."

Pincheback wrote up a new blog on The Chinese Room's site, commenting on the acuqisition, urging readers to "watch this space" for news in the future:

And finally, but perhaps most importantly: yes, we are talking to a range of potential partners about a new title. Something bigger, something that joining Sumo enables us to pursue because all of a sudden, we’re part of a family of developers with a decade and a half of experience in making all kinds of games, and making them really well. Something that takes a more traditional game genre – no, you don’t get to know what just yet – and lets us spin our worlds and stories on top of that. It’s going to be very, very exciting.

So watch this space. We’re going to start gently adding new faces to the team as we push through prototyping, and I’m so happy to know we’ll be joining the amazing talent of both Sumo and our local network of studios in Brighton – where so many cool things are happening right now

For more on The Chinese Room, you can check out our review of Everybody's Gone To The Rapture.

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