FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa has purchased the studio behind acclaimed JRPG series Octopath Traveller.
In a statement during its quarterly earnings report (via VGC), Kadokawa, which also owns the Elden Ring developer, said that it had purchased the studio, Acquire Corp, "to strengthen the ability to create IP in games as part of our game business strategy."
Kadokawa says that it hopes to "generate synergies" with existing game studios, which will strengthen development efforts and "enhance out lineup of console games." That could mean that Acquire will assist the company's other studios, as is common practice under companies like PlayStation, for instance, but it certainly also seems that Kadokawa has hopes for Acquire to continue creating its own games. It's not clear whether that would mean more Octopath Traveller titles - those have been published by Square Enix, but FromSoftware games are also regularly published externally - Elden Ring, for instance, was published by Bandai Namco.
Most exciting, I think, is the suggestion of IP creation. Acquire could be set to create its own, entirely new games, but it might also assist with hopes for Elden Ring to become a franchise "beyond the game itself", which Bandai Namco CEO Yasuo Miyakawa suggested in 2022. Either way, it's an exciting future for a company that's quickly established itself at the forefront of a recent wave of '2.5D' JRPGs - Octopath Traveller was a hit, and its sequel, which came out in 2023, was widely considered to have been the biggest snub during awards season after it failed to secure any nominations during The Game Awards.
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