Perfect World Acquires Major Share Of Runic Games

18 May 2010 at 12:35:51 by Bill Vaughan

The Chinese publisher behind the hugely popular MMORPG Perfect World has acquired a majority share of Runic Games.

Runic Games was created by Max and Erich Schaefer, co-founders of Blizzard North, along with Travis Baldree and Peter Hu. The team had been together at Flagship studios where they were working on Mythos before Flagship was dissolved and they lost the rights to the IP. All 14 members of the Mythos team from Flagship moved over the Runic and started work on what is now known as Torchlight. The company is also working on an MMO based in the Torchlight universe.

Perfect World has a number of MMOs under its belt, including the free to play Battle of the Immortals which was launched earlier this month, and the upcoming Forsaken World (get beta keys for the Forsaken World closed beta test).

What this means for the Torchlight MMO is unclear just yet. Some fans are worried that Runic may be heading in the same direction as Flagship Studios, others are pleased that Runic now has the financial backing of such a well-known gaming company.

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