FromSoftware owners buy the studio behind Octopath Traveler series

Acquire Corp, the studio behind Octopath Traveler I and II published and co-developed by Square Enix, has recently been bought by the Kadokawa Corporation, a company that already owns FromSoftware (from Elden Ring and Dark Souls fame) and Spike Chunsoft (Danganronpa, Mystery Dungeon, and the original developers of Dragon Quest).

Revealed during a recent earnings results document(via VGC), the acquisition states that Acquire (the studio) is now a “wholly owned subsidiary”, which means it is now completely under the same care as FromSoftware and Spike Chunsoft. “We have multiple game titles in the development pipeline, both for consoles and mobile platforms,” said Kadokawa. “To further strengthen the ability to create IP in games, we have made ACQUIRE Corp. into a wholly owned subsidiary.”

While no details were revealed about what plans they have, they did say that they expect to “generate synergies with existing game-related subsidiaries, strengthen planning and development capabilities Groupwide, and enhance the lineup of console games.”

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Does this mean that the studios will now collaborate? Most likely, that’s exactly what will happen. All three of the mentioned studios have experience acting as support developers, so a collaboration between them is definitely in the cards. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time they work together.

Previously, Acquire produced and developed the Tenchu games with FromSoftware, and was the team behind the highly underrated Way of the Samurai franchise on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, even getting to release a couple of spinoffs with both companies.

It’s also important to note that the way Kadokawa structured their statement heavily points at the studio getting to work on properties such as these once again, so fans of the old-school series have a good reason to be excited. Who knows, we may as well get a true revival of the Kings Field games.