InXile Entertainment, makers of Wasteland 2 and The Bard’s Tale 4, is being bought by Microsoft, the company announced at today’s X018 keynote in Mexico City.
Matt Booty, the head of Microsoft Studios, announced the acquisition, crediting inXile with developing a catalog of deep and engaging role-playing games. The company said inXile would continue to work autonomously.
inXile Entertainment was founded in 2002 by Brian Fargo, who created The Bard’s Tale in the 1980s and later was co-creator of the Wasteland franchise. The studio’s first launch was a variant The Bard’s Tale in 2004, and was followed wth Wasteland 2 in 2014 and Torment: Tides of Numenera in 2017, both of which were successfully funded by Kickstarter campaigns raising a total of $7 million.
The Bard’s Tale 4 launched in mid-September. Wasteland 3 is expected in 2019, following Wasteland 2’s 2014 launch and 2015 “director’s cut” re-release on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.
The acquisition of Obsidian, which is best known for developing Fallout: New Vegas, the Pillars of Eternity games and Knights of the Old Republic 2, has been in the rumor mill for a few months now, The deal to buy Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera developer inXile comes as more of a surprise. In September, inXile boss Brian Fargo said he was considering buying back Interplay, the studio he co-founded in the early ’80s—and he was serious about it.
The news marks the latest in a series of developer acquisitions for Microsoft. In the summer it bought Hellblade studio Ninja Theory, which joined Compulsion Games, Playground Games and Undead Labs as part of Microsoft Studios, the company’s game development arm.
According to a tweet, this will not effect Bards Tale IV or Wasteland 3
We'll be keeping our backer commitments for #BardsTale4 and #Wasteland3. Beyond that is TBD. It's early days yet.
— inile entertainment (@inXile) November 11, 2018
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