Tencent becoming majority shareholder of Techland

We're about to wish good night and good luck to the folks over at Tencent.

Tencent has just announced that gaming juggernaut Tencent is in the process of becoming its majority shareholder. In a company blog post earlier today, Techland revealed that after 30 years of being an independent studio, they would be partnering with Tencent after it becomes Techland's majority shareholder.

Techland first garnered notable attention with the release of Call of Juarez in 2006 and its follow-up prequel, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, in 2009. The studio's success continued with 2011's Dead Island. Known for having one of the best gaming trailers that year, Dead Island was very commercially successful, despite lukewarm critical reception due to the gameplay not matching or coming close to the tone of the trailer.

But the game that truly put Techland on the map, and what it's most famous for, is 2015's Dying Light. Dead Island plus parkour, Dying Light achieved commercial and critical acclaim. Since its release, many gamers regard it as one of the best games in the zombie genre.

Despite being a smaller independent study, Techland's post-game handling of Dying Light has been praised as one of the best case studies for how developers should treat their games. Dying Light enjoyed many years of success, and its sequel, Dying Light 2, released in 2022, is expected to follow a similar path.

Techland is presently working on a fantasy open world action-RPG, which will be the studio's first new IP in over a decade. In the press release revealing their partnership with Tencent, Techland expressed their faith that this new partnership will allow the studio to go full-speed ahead and ensure their upcoming new IP meets expectations.

Paweł Marchewka will be staying on as CEO of Techland. Techland will also maintain creative freedom and ownership of their IPs.