After picking up the majority of Sacred 2 developer Ascaron's assets earlier this month, Kalypso Media now announces the formation of Gaming Minds Studios, where former Ascaron devs work on former Ascaron games.
When German developer Ascaron entered insolvency in April, things were looking grim for the studio's properties, which included Port Royale, Darkstar One, On the Ball and The Patrician. Luckily for fans, Kalypso swooped in, grabbed what they could, and now have set up a new nest for Ascaron's properties, with The Patrician III on track for a summer release. Stefan Marcinek, Global Managing Director for Kalypso Media Group, explains the new studio's formation as move towards greater independence.
"For Kalypso, this move is not just an expansion of our own studio capacities, but will also allow us greater independence in our games development. We currently have four new titles scheduled for release in 2010 which are being developed in our Munich and Gütersloh studios"
While this is excellent news for fans of Ascaron's other projects, it leaves the future of the Sacred series up in the air, though maybe the poor performance of the console versions have already sealed that franchise's fate.