Dying Light developer Techland raised the Tencent flag today, announcing that the Chinese gaming h25 conglomerate Tencent will soon become the company's biggest shareholder.
"Today I am happy to announce the partnership with Tencent who are in the process of becoming Techland's majority shareholder," Techland CEO Pawel Marchewka said. "Teaming up with u31 Tencent will allow us to move full speed ahead with the execution of the vision for our games. We have chosen an ally who has already partnered with some of the world's finest videogame companies and helped them reach new heights while respecting their ways of doing things."
Marchewka described Tencent as "like-minded friends and strong partners, who share the same vision, passion, and have the willingness to back it up with their knowledge, experience, and capabilities." The goal of the deal, he said, is to help ensure that the open-world ARPG Techland has in development "will live up to the expectations for our first new IP in almost a decade."
"We will retain full ownership of our IPs, maintain creative freedom, and continue to operate the way we believe is right," Marchewka said. He'll also be staying on as Techland's CEO.
Tencent is one of China's biggest tech companies but it suffered a real downturn in fortunes through 2022, wrought by a combination of the country's crackdown on the tech industry, strict Covid-19 restrictions, and an overall economic slowdown. Its share price has bounced back considerably since then, though—not to where it was during the heady days of early 2021, but close to double what it was in late 2022—and a new investment in a Western studio H25 could be seen as a signal that Tencent is at least starting to return to form and action.