THQ is back! Sort of...

[Nineshadow]

                                            

You guys remember THQ, right? They were a pretty big video game developer and publisher. Among their works you might remember Saints Row, Red Faction, Company of Heroes and Darksiders. You might also remember that they went bankrupt in 2012, a big surprise for everyone in the industry.

 

As odd as it may seem to rebrand yourself after a failed game publisher, that's exactly what Nordic Games did, game publisher from Austria. They started off from JoWooD (man I miss them) and have gotten their hands on a lot of other IPs over the years. They've also been involved in retail deals and ports for games, like Ori and the Blind Forest and Broken Age. Anyway, in the 2013 THQ auction they bought a lot of IPs from them and the THQ trademark, which they've now put to good use, officially changing their name from Nordic Games to THQ Nordic.

 

Taken from their official press release:

Quote

Whilst we take great pride in our Swedish roots and accomplished a great deal under the Nordic Games masthead, we decided it was time to incorporate the THQ name. Those key brands will continue to shape our business in a meaningful way going forward, and THQ Nordic represents a core approach of doing much more than “owning” a highly competitive portfolio of IPs. We cherish them, and align them with the very best development resources to expand upon them with the level of experience that communities and established fan bases expect and deserve.

 

With this rebrand we are entering the next phase in our company’s evolution.

As of now we have 23 game projects in development, 13 thereof have not yet been publicly announced, but are sure to be in the next months. Needless to say, the majority of these projects are based on former THQ owned IPs and franchises.

 

[EpicNewman]

THQ was the best!

[SageOfSpice]

Nope.

[rn8686]

5 minutes ago, Nineshadow said:

Whops, accidentally posted the topic. Writing it right now. TL;DR : Nordic Games got renamed to THQ Nordic.

 

You guys remember THQ, right?

I just remember THQ because they used to own 4A games. 

[Nineshadow]

Ok, finished writing the post.

 

Jeez, I just wanted to insert a new paragraph and pressed enter. Little did I know that the "Submit post" button was selected because I had been switching tabs. Oh well...

[ivan134]

Cool. Now gimme darksiders 3

[Maslofski]

oh shit, didnt know about nordic games, fuck yeah! spellforce and the guild ftw!

[Misanthrope]

So...do they have the license for those Gothic games? Or did someone picked up those assets?

[Tocsin_786]

Hopefully they are developing a new Supreme Commander game, there hasen't been a better RTS than Supreme Commander 1 

[Delicieuxz]

43 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

So...do they have the license for those Gothic games? Or did someone picked up those assets?

The Gothic license returned to Piranha Bytes following the release of Arcania. Piranha Bytes is currently working on ELEX, and haven't yet mentioned plans for another game in the Gothic universe.

[terrytek]

so will this mean saints row 5? i've been waiting for the successor in the sequel for like FOREVER.

[JAKEBAB]

Just want a true successor to the MXvsATV series the last good game in the series was reflex

[ADM-Ntek]

4 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

So...do they have the license for those Gothic games? Or did someone picked up those assets?

well the IP is back with the original developer piranha bytes. and the old Gothic games are under Nordic publishing now.

[handymanshandle]

Saints Row 3 was pretty good, I heard that the games after it kinda sucked. Maybe it had to do with THQ going bust. Well that'll be interesting to see if it'll be like the THQ that I knew about or if it's more like this Nordic Games company. I'd suspect it might be a mash up of the two?

[Helly]

7 hours ago, ivan134 said:

Cool. Now gimme darksiders 3

I want darksider 3 as well, but unfortunately thats the 1 IP they didnt get because someone else had a higher bid for it ?. There were talks to create the game for that company but ive heard nothing about it since.....

[Master Disaster]

52 minutes ago, wcreek said:

Saints Row 3 was pretty good, I heard that the games after it kinda sucked. Maybe it had to do with THQ going bust. Well that'll be interesting to see if it'll be like the THQ that I knew about or if it's more like this Nordic Games company. I'd suspect it might be a mash up of the two?

SR4 was dreadful, they took a fairly decent IP and made it dumb, repetitive and boring. 

[MilkJugg24]

I hope they remake their Spongebob games.

[handymanshandle]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

SR4 was dreadful, they took a fairly decent IP and made it dumb, repetitive and boring. 

I tried SR3 on a trial of On Live I had and I found it kinda interesting, so I got it for my Xbox 360 for sometime a bit later and I played the full game and yeah I liked it. Going back to it after using GTA V it was a bit weird, controls wise but nonetheless it was  an interesting game. SR4 I heard was more so like canned DLC that was meant for SR3 but then became its own game instead. Not sure about Gat out of Hell though.

[sof006]

Yay! Please bring back Darksiders! I loved that series.

[Doobeedoo]

Nice! Titan Quest was fun, Darksiders continuation now.

[CTR640]

I hope Juiced 3!

[dalekphalm]

10 hours ago, terrytek said:

so will this mean saints row 5? i've been waiting for the successor in the sequel for like FOREVER.

THQ Nordic doesn't own Saints Row - so no. This does not mean Saints Row 5. IIRC, Rockstar Deep Silver now owns the Saints Row franchise. Expect to see them eventually make a SR5 eventually, but THQ Nordic will have no involvement.

6 hours ago, JAKEBAB said:

Just want a true successor to the MXvsATV series the last good game in the series was reflex

Fortunately for you, MX vs ATV is one of the THQ licenses that Nordic bought.

 

For those interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THQ_Nordic#Key_Franchises.2FIPs

 

These are the ONLY THQ IP's that THQ Nordic owns. Still a decent portfolio, mind you.

[ADM-Ntek]

6 hours ago, Helly said:

I want darksider 3 as well, but unfortunately thats the 1 IP they didnt get because someone else had a higher bid for it ?. There were talks to create the game for that company but ive heard nothing about it since.....

they have darksiders and according to a gamestar article they are looking into it.  

 

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

THQ Nordic doesn't own Saints Row - so no. This does not mean Saints Row 5. IIRC, Rockstar Deep Silver now owns the Saints Row franchise. Expect to see them eventually make a SR5 eventually, but THQ Nordic will have no involvement.

Fortunately for you, MX vs ATV is one of the THQ licenses that Nordic bought.

 

For those interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THQ_Nordic#Key_Franchises.2FIPs

 

These are the ONLY THQ IP's that THQ Nordic owns. Still a decent portfolio, mind you.

they will also do the retail/steam version of Quantum Break.

 

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, Helly said:

I want darksider 3 as well, but unfortunately thats the 1 IP they didnt get because someone else had a higher bid for it ?. There were talks to create the game for that company but ive heard nothing about it since.....

I don't know what you're talking about, but as the picture in my post proves, and @ADM-Ntek reinforces, THQ Nordic bought the Darksiders IP from the THQ Auction. They have full rights to the game series.

6 minutes ago, ADM-Ntek said:

they have darksiders and according to a gamestar article they are looking into it.  

 

[samcool55]

Please let there be a new juiced game!

The arcade racer market is completely empty, especially on PC.

Afaik the only good-ish arcade racer released this year is the new nfs...