
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and some of the wording here may not be 100% correct. Apologies in advance!
If you're at all tuned in to gaming news, you'll probably have noticed the seemingly-endless and slightly-worrying number of news posts about acquisitions over the past few years — and that one of the names cropping up over and over again is Embracer Group, which seems to be snarfing up game studios left and right.
But at this point, you're probably wondering — okay, what do they actually own the rights to now? Sure, Embracer Group themselves won't be making the games, but they have the power to order new entries in a fair few IPs at this point, most recently the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit series, which they acquired in August of 2022.
So, let's take a look at a (non-exhaustive) list of the biggest IPs, franchises, and titles that Embracer now owns through its acquisitions:
Video Games & Series
- The Lord of the Rings
- The Hobbit
- The Ascent
- Sanctum
- Goat Simulator
- Satisfactory
- Giana Sisters
- Destroy All Humans! (2020-present)
- Deep Rock Galactic
- Realm of the Mad God
- DragonVale
- FlatOut
- Wreckfest
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance
- Gothic
- Risen
- ELEX
- MotoGP
- MXGP
- Darksiders
- Remnant: From the Ashes & Chronos: Before the Ashes
- SnowRunner
- Duke Nukem
- Zen Pinball
- CastleStorm
- Maneater
- Metro
- Shadow Warrior
- Evil West
- Trek to Yomi
- Borderlands
- Brothers in Arms
- Homeworld
- Homefront
- Road 96
- Torchlight
- Hob
- Neverwinter
- Gex
- Tomb Raider
- Legacy of Kain
- Deus Ex
- Thief
- Second Sight
- Alone in the Dark
- This Is The Police
- Saints Row
- Dead Island
- We Sing
- De Blob
- Red Faction
- TimeSplitters
- MX vs ATV
- Killing Floor
It also looks like they hold a large number of shares in the companies that make the following games:
- Valheim
- Songs of Conquest
- Tick Tock: A Tale for Two
- Time on Frog Island
And, finally, they also own Limited Run Games, a physical publisher of video games (which hasn't actually developed any in-house).
Comics, Movies & TV

When it comes to comics, movies, and TV, Embracer's ownership of rights is a bit messier. Many of the properties that Dark Horse — one of Embracer's subsidiaries — has published don't actually belong to Dark Horse. Some were licensed out, and others have been returned to the original rights holders, or moved to new ones.
- 300
- 47 Ronin
- The Mask
- Aeon Flux
- Aliens
- Aliens: Colonial Marines
- Alien3
- Alien Vs Predator
- Angel
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Conan
- Critical Role
- Emily Strange
- Ghost
- Hellboy
- Indiana Jones
- James Bond
- Nexus
- Predator
- RoboCop
- Serenity
- Sin City
- Tarzan
- The Terminator
- Timecop
- The Umbrella Academy
- X
- Xena: Warrior Princess
Embracer also owns Dark Horse Entertainment, which has published movies and TV shows for the following stories:
- The Mask
- Timecop
- Hellboy
- Alien Vs Predator
- Emily the Strange
- R.I.P.D.
- The Umbrella Academy
Board Games & Card Games

- 7 Wonders
- Agricola
- Call of Cthulhu
- Carcassonne
- Ca$h 'n Gun$
- Catan
- Citadels
- Diplomacy
- Dixit
- Dobble
- Formula De
- Ghost Stories
- Hanabi
- Jaipur
- Jungle Speed
- Liar's Dice
- Pandemic
- Small World
- Splendor
- Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game
- The Werewolves of Millers Hollow
- Ticket to Ride
- Time's Up!
- Twilight Imperium
- Unlock!
- Pokémon (French only)
- The Lord of the Rings (card game)
- A Game of Thrones (card game)
- Arkham Horror (card game)
- Marvel Champions (card game)
- Justice League
- Gremlins
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
- Battlestar Galactica (TCG)
- Quarriors!
- The Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game
- Dice Masters
- Clix
- Mage Knight
Phew. How long do you give it until Embracer owns us, too? And do you think this kind of slow monopoly is a good thing, or a bad thing for video games? Tell us in the comments!
Comments 41
From what I can tell, Embracer does not own the rights to Little Nightmares. They acquired the lead developers, Tarsier Studios, who have announced that they are stepping away from Little Nightmares after developing Little Nightmares 2. The rights to Little Nightmares remains in the hands of the publisher, Bandai Namco.
It's interesting that Square Enix kept Outriders as part of the sale to Embracer Group. Of all the IP to keep, why Outriders over Tomb Raider or Deux Ex?
So basically it's Swedish Disney.
Thousands of employees will be crushed when the monster squid starts shedding tentacles.
Time to Embrace our new evil overlords. Don’t fight it.
Embracer Group owns a lot of non-video games things I've enjoyed for years, and I never even knew.
I find this... disconcerting.
I think the idea of corporate overlords owning entire huge chunks of creative output is very disconcerting, actually.
Yeah them owning all this stuff is kind of weird and not great for the industry. Also insert gex joke here
All those titles without hyperlinks really show you guys need to open up a PC site, Board Game site, and Movie / Media site. Chop chop Hookshot!
Seriously though. They sure have their fingers in a lot of pies. I'm glad at the least they seem to be doing something with most of those IPs. Am not glad that their money is directly funding Square-Enix's spiral into NFT hell.
everyone is worried about Microsoft and Sony buying stuff. Meanwhile, Embracer keeps buying up more and more under the radar
I don't even know what Embracer does with all these IPs. There's a new Saints Row and...???
I'm sure I could find this out if I cared to Google it, but how the hell does this Swedish company no one (and by no one I mean me) has ever heard of have enough money to buy the rights to the Lord of the Rings? I know they bought the remnants of THQ several years ago and a few tiny little game studios, but that's pocket change. Now they're some sort of behemoth that somehow owns everything?
So long as Embracer Group doesn't influence the creative freedom of these IPs and studios and allows them to operate as they did before they were purchased then I don't really see a major issue. This is unlikely though, Embracer will most likely favor certain studios and IPs and leave others to rot...
Important to note that, for example, a lot of the comics published by Dark Horse listed above were licensed from Fox, now owned by Disney, so a lot of those comics were moved from Dark Horse to Marvel or Boom (including republication rights for books created by Dark Horse).
So while Dark Horse did make Alien comic books, that in no way means Embracer own the rights to make more Alien products, without licensing them from Disney.
It would be better to limit those lists to IPs actually owned by Dark Horse, and keep the Alien/Buffy/Serenity stuff as a footnote - like you did for the ports of Witcher and Force Unleashed.
The list as it is could be seen as misleading. Embracer don’t own Alien.
That is the picture of bloat. They own so much nothing gets made and when it does - it barely surpasses shovelware.
I sincerely hope gaming goes into a steep decline in the very near future. We'd all be better for it.
Kate, you missed an L in the last sentence of your article.
@gaga64 Yup, you're right, I could have made the wording clearer on that, so I've added a paragraph!
@Kyloctopus I knew I'd miss at least one, thanks for pointing it out!
@PharoneTheGnome One typo in all those words ain't too bad 😅 but thanks for pointing it out, I've added in the L!
@CharlieGirl the fact that they’ve owned things you’ve enjoyed for years isn’t necessarily a bad sign then if you didn’t know about it?
It won’t be long before they have acquired a country at this rate.
I had no idea they own Gothic, Risen, Elex and Kingdom Come
Looks like we’re passing 6/10 City.
Homeworld ! Oh my oh my
@Rambler you mean crossovers or something like super embracer bros melee?
I’m into that 😁
Limited Run has made games, sort of. Their 2 first releases were made by the same people who own the company. Source : Wikipedia.
@KateGray it didn't bother me honestly. I was just looking for a way to get you to talk to me. in my best Joey voice How YOU doing?
Embracer? But I hardly know her!
That is a concerningly long list of recognizable names they have control over...
Now let's see some stupid IP crossovers!
Gex and James Bond team up to save Middle Earth.
They put up a video even they took over Asmodee. They seem to know what they are doing and it helpes they're European.
Whatever happens with their new Lord of the Rings project, let's agree that they are absolute cowards if they don't make Duke Nukem the star
@KingMike nobody steals our [hobbits] and lives
Doubt they will ever use Torchlight lol 😂
If they can somehow get quality Legacy of Kain sequels made, then they'll be my favorite company ever.
Crap... Huge catalog, hope they know what they are doing...
Wow all of a sudden Embracer is bigger than everyone.
@UmmAchtually correct! Came here to say the same, but you beat me to it. And you have the most appropriate user name ever lol
With Alone in the Dark on the way, I'm hoping for Gex, Time Splitters and Legacy of Kain to make a comeback from their IP list next.
Haven't Embracer said that they're very interested in game preservation? Them holding all these rights hopefully means that they'll at least try to get older games from the companies they own working properly on modern hardware.
That's a lot. Thanks for the guide
The only thing I really care about is the Timesplitters series!!
@PharoneTheGnome that’s super cringe, mate… Stop trying to chat up the staff 😂
@Serpenterror Are all those Ubisoft companies real? And is that really their logo? Looks someone tried to draw their old logo in MS Paint.
I'd say even their early '90s logo with colored shapes was better.
@PessitheMystic lol. I'm not sure its technically cringe worthy to try to strike up a conversation with someone you find interesting. If the person doesn't want the conversation, they don't respond, and you move on. Continuing the conversation attempts would be cringe worthy.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...