The Embracer Group did it again. The Swedish video game and media holding company founded by Lars Wingefors eleven years ago (though it was still called THQ Nordic before the 2019 rebranding) has embarked on a veritable acquisition spree in the last few years, gathering prized IPs and respected game developers such as 4A Games, Flying Wild Hog, Gearbox, and 3D Realms to name a few.
More recently, the Embracer Group entered into an agreement with Square Enix to acquire their Western studios (Eidos Montréal, Square Enix Montréal, and Crystal Dynamics) alongside popular IPs like Tomb Raider, Deux Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain for a mere $300 million, leading Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch to say it was the steal of the century.
The Swedish company may have outdone itself with the latest round of acquisitions, though. Earlier this year, Variety first reported that the Saul Zaentz Company had decided to sell off its Middle-earth Enterprises (formerly Tolkien Enterprises) division, which owns catalog and worldwide rights to motion pictures, video games, board games, merchandising, theme parks, and stage productions related to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit literary works, as well as yet-to-be-explored matching rights in other Middle-earth-related literary works authorized by the Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins.