THQ Nordic Acquires Bugbear, Coffee Stain

THQ, as it turns out, is not done buying studios and intellectual properties. According to DualShockers, the company has now acquired Bugbear Entertainment and Coffee Stain Studios, further growing the amount of studios and brands under the THQ Nordic umbrella.

Bugbear Entertainment is the developer behind Wreckfest, which is now available on Steam and is coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 sometime in 2019. You might also be familiar with Bugbear's work on the FlatOut series, as well as Ridge Racer Unbound, which released on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 in 2012.

Coffee Stain Studios might be best known at the moment for developing the Goat Simulator series of games and add-ons, as well as the upcoming Satisfactory. Coffee Stain also published Deep Rock Galactic by Ghost Ship Games. Under the terms of Coffee Stain's acquisition, THQ Nordic will publish Deep Rock Galactic going forward.

These studio purchases follow a long line of acquisitions made by THQ Nordic in recent years, as the company has made a habit of scooping up defunct properties from long-gone studios and publishers. In past years, THQ Nordic has obtained the rights to THQ games like Darksiders and Red Faction. And more recently, THQ Nordic acquired the rights to TimeSplitters, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and Alone in the Dark.

It'll be interesting to see how both Bugbear Entertainment and Coffee Stain Studios operate now that they're a part of a much larger company. THQ Nordic has been a pretty good steward of the brands it's brought in over the years, however, so we can probably expect that the studios will continue on as normal.

One things is for certain: should either Bugbear or Coffee Stain want a new project to work on, THQ Nordic has plenty of idle IPs laying around that could use some love.